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

From: Gennadiy Rozental (gennadiy.rozental_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-04-26 09:21:35

"Thorsten Ottosen" <nesotto_at_[hidden]> wrote in message 
news:d4lgqm$83h$1_at_sea.gmane.org...
> "Stefan Seefeld" <seefeld_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
> news:426E4259.4070209_at_sympatico.ca...
> | Gennadiy Rozental wrote:
> |
> | > IMO
> | > the more flexible the solution is - the more users it will end up
> | > attracting.
> |
> | I don't agree with this statement at all. Making things more flexible
> | incures a semantic dilution (not to speak of the added complexity
> | necessary to support that flexibility) that encourages users to just
> | 'roll their own' solution.
> |
> | I'm not saying that flexibility or genericity is bad. But it comes
> | with a price.
>
> I don't think it is unfair to see it as an expert tool and not something 
> the
> ordinary user need to use or worry about learning.

I do not know how "expert" it is, but I am quite sure that ordinary user 
will find it very useful. How many times ordinary C++ user is faced with 
resource (of any kind) management tasks? My guess a lot. And in many many 
cases it would be more easy to write a policy for PBSP instead of writing 
everything from scratch. boost::smart_ptr does cover a lot of ground. But 
it's still incomparable (IMO) with power presented by PBSP solution.

> That implies that we do want it in boost,
> but that it might not be a good candidate for std::.

I think that standard containers are way more "expert". But we still want 
them in stl, aren't we?

Gennadiy