Re: [boost] [netlib] 0.8-beta now available!

Subject: Re: [boost] [netlib] 0.8-beta now available!
From: Dean Michael Berris (mikhailberis_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-11-16 00:54:41

On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 3:37 AM, Cliff Green <cliffg_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> From: "Dean Michael Berris" <mikhailberis_at_[hidden]>
>>
>> Cool! Maybe you'd like to contribute to cpp-netlib some of these thin
>> networking libraries? :D We'd love to get more contributions and
>> feedback as well.
>
> Maybe - mostly depends on work restrictions (the library is completely
> generic, though, so there's nothing specifically proprietary about the code,
> just that it's developed as a work project). Let me run it against my boss
> (worst case, I could re-develop using the same concepts, but would rather
> not have to re-write everything).
>

Cool, I'll look forward to see your pull requests! :)

>> Currently the asynchronous client implementation is an active object.
>> It's really trivial to change this to be just a normal
>> io_service-playing implementation that doesn't have its own lifetime
>> thread -- at the cost of a simple interface.
>
> It might be possible to have both - I'll have to share some design ideas
> with you (although for more complex protocols like HTTP it might be
> difficult). Again, it's been a while since I've looked at netlib, so let me
> review the latest.
>

Yep, it is possible to have both. I use a tag dispatch mechanism to
define the interface and implementation of the basic_client<> -- right
now it's just a tag that determines whether a basic_client<> is an
active object. Adding a number of tags to support an
externally-provided io_service on the client side is entirely
possible.

> In any case, it's nice to be able to package up functionality that a lot of
> users need, but it's also nice to be able to decouple.
>

I agree 100%.

>> Also, now it requires GCC 4.4 at least to build applications that use
>> it, making it near impossible to support embedded platforms that still
>> use older versions of GCC (2.95, 4.1.x).
>
> GCC 4.4? Really? What is driving that?

That's just the lowest version I've been developing with and am willing to test.

> I can understand not supporting a
> really ancient GCC such as 2.95, or even 3.x versions, but no support for
> 4.12 (for example)?
>

4.1.2 might be supported after a few tweaks in a few places. Some
users have already reported that 4.1.2 on RHEL/CentOS is not
immediately supported. Until I get a chance to debug that, I'm not
confident that cpp-netlib can be built with 4.1.2. ;)

>> At any rate, thanks very much Cliff for the feedback, I hope you can
>> take a look at cpp-netlib and hopefully you can share more insights to
>> help shape a hopefully boost-worthy network library implementation. :)
>
> I'll be glad to help however I can (mostly just depends on available time,
> as is usually the case :) ).
>

I understand completely, nonetheless I'll look forward to more
feedback not just from you but also from others on the list interested
in the development of the library.

Have a great one and thanks again!

-- 
Dean Michael Berris
deanberris.com