Re: [boost] [container] small_flat_set and small_flat_map

Subject: Re: [boost] [container] small_flat_set and small_flat_map
From: Chris Glover (c.d.glover_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-10-19 13:51:51

On Wed, 19 Oct 2016 at 13:21 Sam Kellett <samkellett_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> done: https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/12536
>
> i'm happy to take a stab at implementing this if you're happy to review it?
>

While I hesitate to assume I know the best solution to anyone else's
particular problem, I have to question the real usefulness of this in terms
of flat_set and flat_map.

Typically, such a small space optimisation is applicable when 90% of one's
use cases fall within the small size. For strings and vectors, this makes
sense because there could be anywhere from a few items, to many items.

But, typically set or map is chosen precisely because there will be many
items in the container, otherwise you would choose something else, like an
unsorted array like structure. So, to me the case of optimising for the
small size makes little sense.

-- chris