Re: [boost] [boost::endian] Request for comments/interest

Subject: Re: [boost] [boost::endian] Request for comments/interest
From: Tomas Puverle (Tomas.Puverle_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-05-26 22:26:59

> Hi Tom, how are you.

I am good.  I hope you had a good flight back from boostcon.  I ended up being 
stuck in Denver because I missed my last connection.

> One of the advantages of the Beman's Endian library is that the endianes of 
the stored data is on the type. I
> think that this is a must, as very often the hidden endian bugs are are due 
to this fact.

There may be some overlap here with the post I just sent in reply to Terry's 
questions.  Rather than repeating myself, do you mind if I refer you to that 
post?

> I proposed to Beman to split the functionality of endian into two levels. 
The first level take care just of
> endian format and how to convert from one endian to the ether. The second 
defines integer endian types. 
<snip more...>

Actually, I have toyed with the idea and I am not at all opposed to it.  But I 
thought I'd start small first.

> * My experience with swap in place is that it is very dangerous as you can 
swap in order to send a message and
<snip>

At the end of the day, doing endian swapping is inherently a "dangerous" 
operation, to use your words.  I don't think we can always stop the programmer 
from doing something silly... ;)

> Resuming, there will be always people that prefere one or the other design.

I agree.  Thank you for the feedback.

Tom