Re: [boost] Curiousity question

Subject: Re: [boost] Curiousity question
From: Chris Glover (c.d.glover_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-10-13 11:49:40

On Thu, 13 Oct 2016 at 10:32 Peter Dimov <lists_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> Edward Diener wrote:
>
> The basic issue with a Boost library that allows one to switch between
> Boost
> and standard components is this: the usual motivation for using a standard
> component when available is to avoid a dependency on Boost. But if you
> don't
> have Boost, you also don't have the Boost library that would allow you to
> switch.
>
>
There are two other motivations I've run into in the wild.

a. To depend on less of boost for compile time reasons. The standard
library equivalents on a given platform typically compile faster than the
boost equivalents because they have less machinery thanks to only having to
worry about a single platform. I say typically because it's not this simple
since boost headers can be included in a more piecemeal fashion which can
be used to optimize, but in practice, it holds.

b. Some platforms don't have a boost implementation of things like threads,
so its useful to be able to use the vendor supplied std versions in those
cases.

-- chris