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From: Thomas Witt (witt_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-11-23 14:16:27
My vote for the Named Parameters library is a clear YES, but ...
the documentation needs to be improved.
- What is your evaluation of the design?
I think the design is sound. It provides all the functionality I can
think of. I particularly like lazy evaluation of defaults and
controlling the overloadset. I am convinced that removing
spurious overloads will become ever more important in
modern C++.
- What is your evaluation of the implementation?
I did a very brief reading of the code. No complaints here.
- What is your evaluation of the documentation?
The documentation needs improvement. Ignoring a few typos in the
current documentation I still think the documentation is not
sufficient for using the library. A reference is needed.
- What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library?
To me named parameters have the potential to significantly improve
the interfaces used in C++ code, be it application code or library
code.
A problem that AFAICS every named parameter lib faces is the
issue of keyword scoping. The keyword objects have the potential to
reserve names in scopes that they shouldn't. I think the only way
to find out how big this problem is in practice and what the best
idioms for scoping the keywords are is by using named parameter
libraries.
The other issue is the tradeoff between ease of use/interface design
and the associated compiletime and runtime costs. E.g. compile speed
and codesize. Again I think we will only find out by experimenting.
- Did you try to use the library? With what compiler? Did you have
any problems?
No.
- How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A
quick reading? In-depth study?
About 1.5h
- Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain?
No, as far as named parameter concepts outside C++ are concerned.
Regards
Thomas
-- Thomas Witt witt_at_[hidden]
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