[boost] Re: Intrusive containers: second iteration

From: Olaf Krzikalla (krzikalla_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-05-03 04:41:01

Hi,

David Abrahams wrote:
> but if it's true that "nobody seems to care very
> much," adding the library to the review queue is probably premature at
> best.
I'm already aware of this problem too. Unfortunately I don't have a good 
measurement of 'how much interest is enough interest?'. I've browsed all 
the (so called) searchable archives of boost.devel, but didn't find 
anything useful. Either the search function was too limited or the 
search results couldn't be ordered in threads or there was no 'view 
complete thread'. So I have no clue, how many replies indicate enough 
interest.
And of course you have to keep boost as small as possible. If it becomes 
too big, nobody will use it anymore, because nobody have a complete 
overview and is able say, what's actually available (and IMHO boost is 
already too big, the fundamentals are coupled too tight with high-level 
code).
OTOH intrusive containers are a very fundamental piece of code. You can 
build all sort of containers on top of it (including STL container, 
boost::multi_index_container), while you can't do the opposite. But I 
admit, that the application area is limited - they serve either as a 
base or are used in perf-critical parts. And as you wrote in another 
post, the application programmer rarely needs to write really fast code.
In addition, programmers coming to C++ from 'higher' languages (Java, 
script lang.) will certainly have problems to understand the differences 
  between intrusive and non-intrusive containers and hence don't 
consider intrusive containers even at the right places.
Nevertheless IMHO intrusive containers belong to boost. They are part of 
an development process opposite to the popular one (that is, they 
reintroduce one of the roots of the language instead of trying to 
emulate yet another JSDK/C# library feature). I wouldn't go as far as to 
say they belong to std (as someone emailed me), but once in a while a 
question in a newsgroup pops up, where intrusive containers either fits 
perfectly or at least have to be considered as a possibility.

Best regards
Olaf Krzikalla