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

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-04-27 20:39:02

"Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website For Email)" <SeeWebsiteForEmail_at_[hidden]> writes:

> David Abrahams wrote:
>> Maybe because Robert was listing points upon which the proposal didn't
>> fare well but that he thought were worthy of consideration?  You're
>> not helping your case at all by claiming everything points to bias.
>> It just looks paranoid.
>
> By the way, who was it who just called and hung up??? :oD

What are you implying??? ;oP

>> Maybe, not but it's not a long way from what you *actually wrote* to
>> "evil spirits."  Starting from "conflict of interest" connected to
>> lobbying and voting and then proceeding to a suggestion that people
>> are claiming something they don't "really really believe" and
>> "convenient" forgetting of crucial facts, there's a lot in there to
>> take as disparaging.
>
> Yeah, "conflict of interest" isn't the word because there's not a real 
> "interest" there, but rather a mere subjective opinion. 

I'm not going to belabor this, but what appears to be an attack in
your post goes well beyond a mere poor choice of words.

> But then let me ask this again: if binary compatibility is assigned
> such a weight on shared_ptr, then why isn't it a concern for other
> obvious candidates in the standard library, such as strings and
> vectors? 

I don't know that binary compatibility *is* "assigned such a weight on
shared_ptr," but let's suppose for a minute that it is.  Maybe you're
looking at it the wrong way.  It might be assigned such a weight
because it's a nice feature that nothing else has, and that can be
used to pass those other things (like strings and vectors) across DLL
boundaries.

> Shouldn't we measure those guys by the same measure? 

I don't see why.  We don't measure std::vector by its inability to do
O(log N) lookups and insertions.  We don't expect std::vector to be a
set, nor do we expect it to act like a shared_ptr.

> Again, binary compatibility is a very useful feature, but it should
> only be assigned so much importance.

Perhaps it only _is_ assigned so much importance.  How do you know
what relevance it's given by the various people deliberating?

>> You bet it ain't proper, whatever syntagm means.  What the heck's a
>> syntagm?
>
> http://www.m-w.com says:
>
> syntagm is one of more than 1,000,000 entries available at 
> Merriam-WebsterUnabridged.com. Click here to start your free trial!

Hmm, not a vert useful definition.  I'll try
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/syntagm

>>>Library design and appreciation is subjective; that makes it hard to
>>>stay unbiased towards a particular design. I know I am biased
>>> myself, albeit not to the point of being unreasonable. 
>>
>> Think again.  Your last post was unreasonable.
>> 
>>>Naturally I'd believe others might be as well, and I don't think I
>>>dispense offense in saying that.
>>
>> Whether you dispense offense is in the ear of the listener, and I'm
>> hearing it.
>
> Maybe you are particularly sensitive towards yours truly.

Believe it or not, Andrei, I find I am predisposed to like you and
forgive your trespasses.  The fact that you have such a likable
personality only makes it harder to understand when you let fly this
kind of base accusation.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com