Re: [boost] [SoC] project ideas: BigInt

Subject: Re: [boost] [SoC] project ideas: BigInt
From: Paul A. Bristow (pbristow_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-03-10 10:33:51

> -----Original Message-----
> From: boost-bounces_at_[hidden] [mailto:boost-bounces_at_[hidden]] On
Behalf Of
> Andrew Sutton
> Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 3:04 PM
> To: Boost mailing list
> Subject: [boost] [SoC] project ideas: BigInt
> 
> I put BigInt back on the project ideas board with a caveat that some
> approaches aren't viable due to licensing concerns and that successful
> proposals should include discussion of those concerns. Out of curiosity, do
> we have a summary of those licensing issues and other concerns for this
> project? I haven't had the time to dig through archives.

I think a Boost licence (option) bigint that Boost code can just use without
causing licensing difficulties would be very useful.

http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.devel/199580 described some of
the issues.

Would Barend Gahrels (see his comments in the conversation) 

like to mentor a student to push his numeric_adaptor project along?

(Or would Kevin Sopp like a student to finish his promising effort - preferably
in a numeric_adptor way that it can be switched).

But it needs to be very well documented with lots of tutorials and examples.

If one can switch it to use faster, but possibly license-troublesome underlying
engine, so much the better.

> If we're accepting for BigInt, should also solicit a project for arbitrary
> precision floats? What about a fixed point data structure?

An even bigger can of worms!  Let's walk before we try to run ;-)

Paul

---
Paul A. Bristow
Prizet Farmhouse
Kendal, UK   LA8 8AB
[phone], mobile [phone]
pbristow_at_[hidden]