[boost] Re: Formal Review: FOREACH macro

From: Joel (joel_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-05-04 21:11:58

Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website For Email) wrote:
> Joel wrote:
> 
>> Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website For Email) wrote:
>>
>>> So what I was trying to say was, the point at which I will veer away 
>>> from pp-based programming to other tools happens earlier than others'.
>>
>>
>>
>> Interesting. At which "point" might that be? For example, which of the
>> PP based libraries in boost would you consider using external tools?
> 
> 
> My point would be before the PP library itself. I do, however, 
> understand the attraction of having the compile process take care of it 
> all. But "however however", building boost doesn't have to obey that 
> scarcity. So I think it's entirely reasonable that building boost might 
> generate C++ using *other* tools. I bet such an approach would lead to 
> more maintainable and easy-to-understand code (only requiring knowledge 
> of general tools that should be in a boost developer's toolchest anyway) 
> instead of using the PP programming paradigm, of which learning I 
> believe is less rewarding.

I think you are assuming that there's always something to "build".
Yeah, I agree that would be ok (***). OTOH, lots of parts of the boost
libraries do not require building at all since they are "all header".

(***) aside: such an approach would lead to more maintainable and
easy-to-understand code IFF we agree on a specific code generation
tool. Otherwise, we'll end up with lots of tiny languages which will
ultimately defeat the maintainability and understandability goal.

Cheers,
-- 
Joel de Guzman
http://www.boost-consulting.com
http://spirit.sf.net