[boost] Re: Network library: What we have until now

From: Don G (dongryphon_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-04-13 09:28:14

Hi Doug,

> Here's more motivation: the C++ committee is planning
> to finish the next revision of the C++ standard in the
> next few years, and I stress *few*. Boost has been a
> wonderful source of libraries for the C++ committee,
> and C++ would be greatly improved if the next version
> of the standard library contained a sockets library...
> this library could be that library, but we have to
> finish it, review it, and be sure it's right. We can't
> review what doesn't come up for review. "Finished" is
> more important than "complete".

That possibility was actually my motivation for getting involved with
Boost. :)

I believe that the proposal I posted fits with this goal, while a
"socket library" does not. It was only recently posted here, but it
has been under development at my work (where I recently got
permission to get involved with Boost) for many years. In the process
of posting to Boost, I have reworked it a bit to make it more
"boost-like".

There are only a few concepts in general use that are not covered in
my proposal, but those can always be added. The abstractions I
proposed can be implemented on virtually any modern OS and, because
it makes minimal assumptions about stream and address semantics, can
describe a non-TCP/IP network (within limits, of course<g>). I have
done so using HTTP tunnels and reflecting servers (as I mentioned
elsewhere).

Sockets are an API to a network. A concept, and not a universal one
as far as I know. What is needed, IMHO, is a C++ description of those
concepts, not a "wrapper over sockets" (though that would come at a
lower level since sockets are just about everywhere we want to
be<g>). It would be like having iostreams be a "wrapper over Windows
Kernel Objects" ;). Clearly, it uses such things on Windows, but that
API has no impact on the C++ interface, nor should it.

Best regards,
Don

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