Re: Revitalization

From: Rainer Deyke (rdeyke_at_[hidden])
Date: 2022-12-06 18:35:45

On 06.12.22 17:52, Peter Dimov via Boost wrote:
> Rainer Deyke wrote:
>> At a first glance, the following libraries would have to justify their continued
>> existence as "core" Boost libraries:
>>
>>     Any (superseded by std::any)
>>     Array (superseded by std::array)
>>     Assign (superseded by std::initializer_list)
>>     Atomic (C++11 feature emulation library)
>>     Bind (superseded by lambda expressions)
>>     Chrono (superseded by std::chrono)
> ...
> 
> This gets us back to our never-ending discussion of Boost dropping C++03 support.

I'm not advocating that any of these libraries are dropped, or even 
deprecated.  I am just advocating that they are pushed into the 
background a bit.

A more neutral approach would be to give each library a range of C++ 
standards for which the library is useful, and allow the user to filter 
by the C++ standard they are using.  Picking C++11, for example, would 
filter out both Atomic (because it is superseded by the standard 
library) and Describe (because it requires C++14).

> I'm sure this time it will be more productive than our last three attempts.
> 
> Incidentally, std::any is C++17, so classifying Any as "legacy" implies everyone
> uses C++17 or better. (You also have "superseded by C++20" further down the
> list, which is even less justifiable.)

It shouldn't be controversial to advocate that new application code 
should use the newest C++ standard where possible.  And for where that's 
not possible, the legacy libraries will still be available.

-- 
Rainer Deyke (rainerd_at_[hidden])