Re: [boost] Case study: Boost.Local versus Boost.Phoenix

Subject: Re: [boost] Case study: Boost.Local versus Boost.Phoenix
From: Jeffrey Lee Hellrung, Jr. (jhellrung_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-02-03 22:27:43

On 2/3/2011 6:36 PM, Gregory Crosswhite wrote:
> Hey everyone,
>
> This e-mail is going to be a case study of my personal experience in
> converting code using Boost.Local to use Boost.Phoenix instead in order
> to get insight into the similarities and differences in what the
> libraries have to offer. I do not claim to have perfect understanding of
> Boost.Phoenix so I acknowledge that it is entirely possible that any
> negative experience I may have are due to my ignorance rather than a
> fault in the library itself.
[...many attempted examples...]
> This doesn't mean that I think that Boost.Phoenix is a bad library.
> Reading through the documentation I am absolutely amazed at how it can
> be used to create very expressive functions; the authors have clearly
> worked very hard on it and should be proud of their work. However, it
> simply cannot be treated as invaliding the need for something like
> Boost.Local, because for one to accomplish many of the same tasks in
> Boost.Phoenix as one can accomplish in Boost.Local one has to deal with
> a whole lot of extra mental effort and frustration, and the result at
> the end is often less expressive and clear (and potentially less
> maintainable) as it would have been if one had used Boost.Local since
> the body is no longer expressed in standard C++.
>
> I hope that you all find this informative!

Very informative, yes.

- Jeff