[boost] Re: Formal Review: FOREACH macro

From: Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website For Email) (SeeWebsiteForEmail_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-05-09 01:12:28

Joel de Guzman wrote:
> Ok. As I already mentioned that I used to really hate the PP, you
> can easily change my mind. I am not particularly fond of the PP
> but the boost PP lib hides all the ugliness behind a usable interface
> and that's fine with me. Sure some ugliness cannot be hidden, like,
> the arcane all cap naming convention prefixed by BOOST_ to avoid
> name clashes, but... it's the only practical way I know. Ok, please,
> I'd like to think out of the box! What other alternatives are there?

This is, unsurprisingly, a major effort, and boost would be a crucible 
of the size and expertise needed to pull it off.

The way I see things, there are three ways:

1. Start from the Boost implementation of the C++ preprocessor, and add 
sane features to it. Keep the old preprocessor features as deprecated.

2. Agree on a standard text preprocessing tool (perl, awk, sed, m4...) 
and write some utilities tailored for C++ tasks.

3. Start an effort to add ways of manipulating ASTs to the native 
language so as to eliminate the need for preprocessing.

Given, however, the lack of traction that I sense around here, I think 
this group will be flooded with arguments on why all of 1, 2, and 3 are 
disadvantageous. But let's stay out of the box :o).

Andrei