[Boost-users] 1.35/1.36 thread library and date_time dependency

From: Ross Wightman (rwightman_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-08-20 00:00:42

After looking through the new 1.35/1.36 threading library (with a lot
of nice changes), I am wondering why the decision to tie it to
boost::date_time was made?

I love date_time as a library, but I believe it's is too large and
cumbersome to be tied to a core threading library. It pulls in an
excessively large include tree whenever I want to use a mutex or
conditional variable. The call tree for doing simple comparisons and
calculations at second to nanosecond scales is also excessive. There
will always be unnecessary converting from seconds and nanoseconds,
into the date_time's internal date + ticks format, and back to seconds
and nanoseconds.

A more fully realized 'xtime' with functions for easy conversion
to/from date_time in an optional header would be a much better
approach in my opinion. The C++0x draft standard looks like it uses a
lean 'system_time' class which is a small subset of date_time.

Regards,

Ross