Re: [boost] [asio] Tutorial 7 using strdup, new

From: Christopher Kohlhoff (chris_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-02-05 16:12:58

Hi Peter,

--- Peter Dimov <pdimov_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> Why is
> 
>
http://asio.sourceforge.net/boost-asio-proposal-0.3.6/libs/asio/doc/tutorial/tutdaytime7.html
> 
> using raw pointers, strdup, new, free and delete? This is soo
> 1996. Tutorials shoud teach.

Yep, this already came up in a review and I'm planning to change
it. IIRC, the motivation for doing it this way was:

- to avoid introducing too many boost facilities at once

- to illustrate the "exactly-once" callback invocation

Since I want to keep the tutorial as simple as possible, I'm a
bit undecided about what to put instead though. I want to ensure
that whatever I use instead doesn't distract from the things
that I am trying to teach.

For example, one option I'm considering is to simply replace
them with shared_ptr<socket>, shared_ptr<std::string> etc, but
keep using free functions as callbacks. The "distraction" I see
with std::string is that I probably need to explain how calling
asio::buffer() on it uses the data() member function, and the
conditions under which the pointer returned by data() is
invalidated.

Any other ideas would be appreciated. Explaining features in
isolation is not easy.

Cheers,
Chris