Re: [boost] Arbitrary precision arithmetic

Subject: Re: [boost] Arbitrary precision arithmetic
From: OvermindDL1 (overminddl1_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-08-17 21:18:30

On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 4:57 PM, Stephen Nuchia<snuchia_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> I'm definitely interested in this field (a pun for those who care).
> Most serious users though have no problem with the GNU license and a
> whole lot of very good quality work goes into GMP.  Like, on a scale
> comparable to the entire boost effort.
>
> I don't have a big appetite for investing in a lib that's just good
> enough, when I could instead contribute to the one that does it best.
> Not for my research work, anyway.
>
> Boost should probably include something usable though, just like it
> needs to include enough linear algebra infrastructure to handle common
> tasks.  Something comparable to the Java or .NET bignum support, enough
> for basic crypto and the usual demo programs.
>
> Duplicating GMP's production values would mean duplicating their
> investment in platform-specific optimizations, something incompatible
> with existing boost organization, practices, and personnel interests.
>
> I don't see anything ambitious happening in this area, but I'm just an
> interested observer.  Others will likely have other views.

I would *love* to have a bignum library in Boost.  Although I like
GMP, its difficulty of building on VS, and its highly restrictive
license (for my projects anyway, completely free and I give out source
when asked, the GPL will not work with the bulk of the code and the
purposes of the projects I work on, for an open-source license, the
GPL is absolutely worthless, I prefer a BSD or Boost style license)
makes it rather absolutely worthless, even considering all the work
that has gone into it, seems so wasted.  It should be such a generic
thing (a bignum library), yet they completely destroyed the usefulness
of it.  So yes, I would love one in Boost, just one other library I
would not have to manage separately and would have a lot of work done
on it as well.  I think work mainly done for the x86 (-64) and the
other top 3 or 4 platforms (ppc, arm, etc...) would be more then
enough to make it very useful, with slower pure C++ fallbacks for
everything else.