[boost] Re: Re: TR2 and C++0x heads up

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-04-25 20:10:45

"Thorsten Ottosen" <nesotto_at_[hidden]> wrote in message 
news:d4gi2c$2jd$1_at_sea.gmane.org...

> In Lillehammer we rejected a policy-based smart pointer...

That isn't what happened. The committee's wiki describes the LWG's position:

"No support for a policy-based framework at this time. This is a refinement 
of Loki, but, while Loki is in use, this refinement isn't. We'll consider 
such a proposal later, if there is widespread practice and strong arguments 
for it."

"No support ... at this time." is very different from rejection. I know I'm 
really looking forward to the day when a policy-based smart pointer is ready 
for standardization. I suspect others will feel the same way when they see 
the work completed. But the work isn't done yet, even though it may be 
pretty close to done.

> unlimited types where also rejected on the grouns it serves too few people
> compared to how hard it is to implement.

Again, the idea of extended precision integers wasn't rejected. There was no 
support for the particular proposal, because "We haven't seen an analysis of 
use cases, so we don't know which communities this is important to, what 
their needs are, and whether this type meets their needs. There's also lack 
of implementation experience, and of precise specification of some of the 
operations." If there really is a need, that analysis is easy enough to do, 
and the other issues are also easy to resolve. The existing proposal can be 
updated, or perhaps someone else will come forward with a different 
proposal.

--Beman