Re: [boost] [smart_ptr] shared_ptr template type

Subject: Re: [boost] [smart_ptr] shared_ptr template type
From: Frank Mori Hess (frank.hess_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-07-17 08:48:42

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On Friday 17 July 2009, Gottlob Frege wrote:
> That is somewhat my point - the topic keeps coming up, so maybe we
> should finally do it.

There was the policy_ptr proposal for boost, which I assume is still in the 
sandbox.  I even found it listed on some old web copies of the boost review 
queue pages, I'm not sure what ultimately happened.

> (Or maybe we need a FAQ saying "don't go 
> there".)

I don't want to tell other people they shouldn't work on it, but my personal 
opinion is that designing the ultimate policy based smart pointer that is 
everything to everyone is a tar pit (which I'm going to avoid).

> In 2002 there seemed to be lots of policy design discussion.  It would
> be interesting to know if we've learned anything over the years.

Well, in 2001 we got Loki::SmartPtr.  In the next couple years we had a bunch 
of design debate in boost over a boostified version.  Now we're in 2009, and 
somehow shared_ptr is still king.  What I take from that is that there is a 
place for exploring other approaches to generalizing smart pointers, such as 
the nested matryoshka doll approach I'm playing with in generic_shared.  And 
also that I want people who think I should just add a policy template 
parameter or two, and giving them default values will solve everything, to 
leave me alone :)

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