Re: [boost] [RFC] Boost library name mangling and Microsoft's 'secure STL' feature.

Subject: Re: [boost] [RFC] Boost library name mangling and Microsoft's 'secure STL' feature.
From: Mat Marcus (mat-lists_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-09-04 13:45:09

On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 10:26 AM, Peter Dimov <pdimov_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>>  Feature: <checked-iterators>
>>      'on'            --> _SECURE_SCL=1
>>      'off' (default) --> _SECURE_SCL=0
>
> I believe that the default should match the VC default, which is 1.
>
> This has no performance implications.
[snip]

I wouldn't say that it has *no* performance implications. Default
settings often have large impact since many people don't take the time
to learn the meaning of the various settings or tune them. In my
experience, this is especially true with a complex tool like boost
build. I expect this would result in a large number of executables
that are needlessly slow, as is the case today. Vendors are not
infallible--I believe that Microsoft made a mistake in defaulting the
flag to 'on' for release builds, and that most users just assume that
they are not paying a release price for this "security". We have an
opportunity to employ to follow conventional best-practices with boost
build defaults, and I still lean in favor of doing so.

Of course there are dangers. Mixing and matching a component built
with the IDE defaults with a component built with (different) boost
build defaults is a recipe for disaster. Then again, it is no great
thing to ship a product with slow generic inner loops. In the end, I
suppose that one could make the argument that one way or another users
must be educated. Nonetheless, I think we should preserve the spirit
of C++ by avoiding needless release performance tax on user-written
generic algorithms.

 - Mat