Re: [boost] [Boost Review] Property Tree Library

From: Jeff Garland (jeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-04-22 12:29:08

Ivan Vecerina wrote:
> The fact that, for your needs, ptree doesn't allow anything that s11n
> doesn't already do, should NOT be a reason to reject the library.
> 
> As I wrote elsewhere, regex and spirit are just as overlapping
> as ptree and s11n.  Yet many needs are only served well by
> one of the two twin libraries.

Regex and Xpressive cover almost exactly the same domain space, and both 
are Boost libraries (xpressive will be in 1.34).  Overlap with existing 
libraries by itself is NOT enough to reject a library.

I've used serialization, program options, multi-index, and property 
tree.  To my eye property_tree is complementary to the others and 
shouldn't necessarily be implemented in terms of the others. 
Serialization, for example, solves a much more general persistence 
problem than property tree, but requires a compiled library. 
property_tree's persistence element is simpler and more focused and 
nicely header only.  Note that I believe that serialization can be 
adapted to read/write JSON, for example, but to date no-one has done this.

Anyway, it's my view that we should turn our focus to the merits of the 
library interface and implementation.

Jeff