Re: [boost] Ann: Floating Point Utilities Review starts today

From: Johan Råde (rade_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-02-25 10:13:22

Zach Laine wrote:
> What is your evaluation of the design?
> 
> It is very straightforward, being basically a bag of functions :).
> Having said that, it would be easier to use the facets in "Facets for
> Infinity and NaN" if I could call a single function that does the work
> in each of the three examples.  The examples seem to indicate
> boilerplate code that will be repeated by most, if not all, users.  It
> therefore make sense to me to provide convenience functions that do
> that work.  For instance, this:
> 
> locale old_locale;
> locale tmp_locale(old_locale, new nonfinite_num_put<char>);
> locale new_locale(tmp_locale, new nonfinite_num_get<char>);
> 
> stringstream ss;
> ss.imbue(new_locale);
> 
> would be easier to accomplish with a convenience function like this:
> 
> stringstream ss;
> reasonable_function_name(ss);
> 
> If there is a technical reason why this is not possible, that would be
> helpful to note this near the examples.

That is of course possible, but I'm not convinced it is desirable.
1. I like to keep the interface minimal.
2. A few calls to C++ standard library functions may be easier to read
than a single call to a custom function.

[snip]

> What is your evaluation of the documentation?
> 
> It is adequate.  It would be better if it were done in QuickBook.

That will be taken care of.

> Since the rationale for
> creating the Sign Bit functions (as stated in the Sign Bit intro)
> includes applicability to 0 and NaN, it would be nice to see those
> represented in the examples.

I have never had any use for that particular functionality myself.
But it is in TR1.

[snip]

Thanks for the review!

--Johan