Re: [boost] [modularization] Improving/splitting up detail

Subject: Re: [boost] [modularization] Improving/splitting up detail
From: Daniel James (daniel_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-11-01 18:34:07

On 1 November 2013 22:10, Daniel Pfeifer <daniel_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>>
>> boost/detail/xxx.hpp
>>
>>    Used by YYY and ZZZ, move to "common"
>
> Isn't there already a dependency from YYY to ZZZ? Could we put xxx.hpp
> to ZZZ instead? Maybe a "common" is not even needed.

We should be careful about making changes just because they fit the
current dependencies. Dependencies are not constant, we don't want to
be in a situation where the dependency graph falls apart because of a
future change to one of these headers. Also, if a header is in detail
it should be potentially useful for future libraries which wouldn't
want to depend on ZZZ (if it isn't, then it shouldn't have been put in
detail in the first place).

Lumping together unrelated code because it happens to fit the
dependency graph could easily result in a mess which makes no logical
sense. Reducing dependencies between header-only libraries is not that
important a concern.