[boost] Network library: What we have until now

From: Boris (boris_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-04-12 13:54:36

I updated 
http://www.crystalclearsoftware.com/cgi-bin/boost_wiki/wiki.pl?BoostNet to 
document why what decisions were made.

We have until now:
* The network library should support four I/O models which are known to many 
programmers as blocking, non-blocking, multiplexing and asynchronous.
* It should be possible to switch between I/O models at runtime (which means 
you have one socket class supporting all I/O models instead of different 
socket classes each of them supporting only one I/O model).
* There should be an asynchronous I/O library as other libraries might want 
to do asynchronous I/O, too.
* There should be an asynchronous design pattern which should be used by all 
Boost libraries which support asynchronous operations.
* On a low level the network library should be close to what is known as 
Berkeley sockets to many programmers.
* On a high level there should be I/O streams support.

As far as I can see from all the discussions that's what we agree on. There 
have been some ideas like event handlers and dispatchers but I am not sure 
where to put them - have a look at 
http://www.highscore.de/boost/net/packages.png please (which is also in the 
Wiki page). This is the overall architecture of the network library. If you 
want me to change or add something please tell me.

Boris