Re: [boost] [xint] Third release is ready, requesting preliminary review

Subject: Re: [boost] [xint] Third release is ready, requesting preliminary review
From: Chad Nelson (chad.thecomfychair_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-05-01 11:18:32

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On 05/01/2010 03:32 AM, Marius wrote:

>>> I'm happy to announce that the third release of the Extended Integer
>>> library is ready, in both the sandbox and the Vault. [...]
> 
> Hi, i must say that i'm a bit concerned about making thread safety a 
> compile time option especially considering that on unix systems you
> don't ussually compile the library and ship it with your program.

I see your point, but I don't consider that a major problem. Most people
using the library won't need thread-safe operation; the ones that do can
compile it themselves with little effort.

> And if all the libraries in boost will have compile time options like
> that it will quickly become unmanageable for distributions.

That's hardly a problem, since "all the libraries in boost" *don't* have
that kind of compile-time option. Though several of them already do...
just off the top of my head, Boost.Regex requires a compile-time option
to support Unicode characters, and I seem to recall several others.

> I would suggest that you either make thread safe the default compile 
> behaviour

That's not really an option, for two reasons: thread-safe behavior is
markedly slower, and it has dependencies on Boost.Move (which isn't yet
an official Boost library) and Boost.Thread (which, as a compiled
library itself, requires linking). The single-thread version is much
faster and doesn't require either of those.

> or offer both safe and unsafe classes.

Certainly possible, though it would complicate the library.

> Or better make it all a header only library wich i'd think is a good
> idea considering that it is not likely to bloat a program that much
> or to be too time consuming to compile.

That *would* simplify things a great deal. I've never tried it though...
an extra 130K of headers in every source code file that uses the library
is a little much, isn't it?
- -- 
Chad Nelson
Oak Circle Software, Inc.
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