Re: [boost] RFC: Boost.XML API prototype in the sandbox

From: Stefan Seefeld (seefeld_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-07-10 12:37:26

Phil Endecott wrote:
> Doug Gregor wrote:
>> On Jul 9, 2007, at 11:12 PM, Stefan Seefeld wrote:
>>> I'm using here libxml2 as backend
> 
>>> I want a seamless mapping that doesn't impose any 
>>> unnecessary copying or other indirection to mitigate the 'impedance 
>>> mismatch'.
> 
>> This is a very, very, very, very, very good approach.
> 
> [I have quoted Stefan's words in the hope that I've captured the core 
> of what Doug is agreeing so emphatically with - I hope I've got it right.]
> 
> Aiming for the minimum overhead in your libxml2 wrapper is a valid 
> objective.  But perhaps in that case you should be selling this as a 
> "C++ wrapper for libxml2", not as a "Boost XML library"?  I would have 
> thought that a largely backend-independent (or self-contained) library 
> with STL-like interface would be more "Boost-compatible".

What about my proposed interface is libxml2-specific, prompting you to
call it a 'libxml2 wrapper' ?

Making the wrapper as thin as possible, yet making the API itself
backend-agnostic (and thus allow it to be reimplemented with other
backends) is part of the balance I was talking about, too.

> Does anyone have any experience of how little overhead could be 
> involved in going from
> 
> e.attributes["foo"]="blah";
> to
> e.set_attribute("foo","blah");
> ?

That is pure syntactic sugar. Yes, this can be done using some proxy
classes. Why should we worry about such details at this point ?

Regards,
                Stefan

-- 
      ...ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin...