Re: [boost] [Config] Support for switching between std:: andboost:: equivalents.

Subject: Re: [boost] [Config] Support for switching between std:: andboost:: equivalents.
From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-06-05 19:44:03

On 6/5/2015 5:20 PM, Peter Dimov wrote:
> Edward Diener wrote:
>
>> Suppose library X is compiled using C++11 mode and your own library Y,
>> which uses library X as a dependency, is compiled without C++11 mode.
>> Again those factors of interoperability between the libraries must be
>> taken into account. Using my macros is not going to change any of
>> that, ...
>
> No, but one could argue that the existence of your macros in
> Boost.Config is going to encourage people to use them and hence make
> this situation more likely.

I agree but incorporating C++11 libraries or using C++11 language 
features in code is inevitable anyway. If my macros make it easier to do 
the former I view that as a success. I certainly feel that making easier 
to move forward toward C++11/C++14/C++17 should be one of the goals of 
Boost, rather than holding people back from doing so. I know that in a 
library on which I am working if the corresponding C++ standard 
equivalent libraries to certain Boost libraries are available I want to 
use them.

There are situations where you might want to stick to the Boost version 
of a library when a C++ standard equivalent is available, but that's 
easy to do by just ignoring my macro system. Similarly you can use my 
macro system so that if you only want to use the C++ standard equivalent 
version of a Boost library you can easily create a preprocessor #error 
if it is not available.