Re: [boost] thoughts on logging library: orthogonal runtime configuration

From: Steven Watanabe (watanabesj_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-04-10 21:03:00

AMDG

brass goowy wrote:
> I think the follow through on pre-built binaries that would be needed is more
> than the release team currently delivers.  It would require branching out to the
> library level (I think the pre-builts are mostly of the whole of Boost) and then
> multiplying that times primary configuration options such as logging/non-logging.
> And then multiplying that total by the various platforms.  That gets to be too much 
> work with the various platforms around.   The situation could be simplified by 
> having  a compiler that applies user code against a library and outputs fully 
> instantiated source code.   That seems like it would minimize the platform dimension 
> in the equation.  The compiler I'm talking about would be strong in terms of
> it's implementation of the language and some/most of the platform related 
> preprocessing wouldn't be needed.    This approach might make it easier to
> push  C++0x functionality to more platforms without the various compiler
> implementors having to each incorporate support for all of the changes required 
> by the standard.
>   

I very strongly disagree.  First of all I do not think that boost
should  *require* the use a particular compiler.
Building libraries with the correct configuration myself once per release is
much less of a burden, IMO, than having to run all my code through
a boost specific preprocessor.  Further, I think that your idea does not
scale to dozens of libraries being instantiated with hundreds of types.
It will mean that I have to explicitly specify which templates
I'm instantiating.  If the instantiation is automatic, then we're
back in something very similar to the current C++ model, only
we've just inflicted another compilation step on users.

In Christ,
Steven Watanabe