Re: [boost] Report from Mont Tremblant C++ Committee meeting

From: Aleksey Gurtovoy (agurtovoy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-10-11 02:00:08

Howard Hinnant writes:
> On Oct 10, 2005, at 10:36 AM, Fernando Cacciola wrote:
>>>    Dubious of use of references.
>>
>> Does this mean they don't see that as useful or that is not well 
>> supported?
>
> I believe there was specific concern about reference rebinding under
> optional<T&>.  There were also several comments that went like: I
> use optional all the time (gives use case), but I've never needed to
> use it with reference types.

IIRC, the developers list's archive keeps an extensive discussion of
the use cases and possible variants of this functionality.

>
>> General question: what shall I do from now on? Follow the
>> discussions on comp.std.c++?
>
> This is a good question, and I can only give an opinion (as opposed to 
> an authoritative answer).
>
> You might explore a interface here on boost which did not have the 
> pointer interface, 

Over my dead body ;). That's the interface we use here at Meta, and to
say that our 'boost::optional' usage is extensive would be an
understatement. We don't care for 'get', though.

> and which dropped reference support.  Then perhaps 
> submit a follow on paper reflecting that experience.  Said paper may 
> either modify your current proposal, or more fully support it.

-- 
Aleksey Gurtovoy
MetaCommunications Engineering