[boost] [xint] Some preliminary review notes

Subject: [boost] [xint] Some preliminary review notes
From: Vladimir Prus (vladimir_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-03-25 05:06:35

Folks,

I've promised to post initial summary of Boost.Xint this Monday, but real life has interferred.
I apologise.

I've made a pass over review emails, and it seems that a few high-level points were raised:

- Whether COW is good idea or not, and whether current COW is truly thread-safe.
- Whether ET should be used
- Whether data copy in "a + b + c" should be eliminated
- Whether the library is "fast", in particular:
  - Do algorithms have best big-O complexity?
  - Are fixed-size integers fast enough
- Whether it would be better to separate algorithms and data represetation
- Whether it's possible to optimize specific cases (addition of 128-bit integers,
ln+gamma, etc), by some template specializations, or other mechanism.

I might have missed something, and I'd appreciate if I was set straight. Please
note that we're talking about high-level issues. The number of specific comments
is already too high for me to even try tracking them all.

At the same time, Chad, I'd appreciate some input from you.

- Could you express your current world view of those issues. Whether they are real,
important, and what plan do you have about them, if any. Note that you are not
required by any means to address every raised concern, but some coherent plan
of action will be very important both for further development of your library
and for review result.
- Do you keep track of technical issues raised? Could you share that list?

Thanks,

-- 
Vladimir Prus
Mentor Graphics
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