Re: [Boost-users] Brainstorming [WAS: Subject: Formal Review of Proposed Boost.Process library starts tomorrow]

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Brainstorming [WAS: Subject: Formal Review of Proposed Boost.Process library starts tomorrow]
From: Boris Schaeling (boris_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-02-11 18:30:14

On Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:39:35 +0100, Jeff Flinn  
<TriumphSprint2000_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> [...]I think with the right abstractions the seemingly contradictory  
> goals can be accommodated. That's what I'm attempting to find. As stated  
> at a previous boostcon: "... abstractions are discovered not invented..."
>
> IMHO, previous version of process have not discovered the proper  
> abstractions. I'm sure that the entirely different paradigms between  
> windows and posix have contributed to the difficulties so far. It's  
> difficult to be a master of the subject matter in both domains.
>
> I think building upon existing boost filesystem and iostreams libraries  
> and their abstractions that do successfully address platform differences  
> will make the effort more successful. Additionally I think it's  
> mandatory for a design to directly acknowledge the multi-phase  
> constraints of the fork/exec paradigm. Also it's mandatory to break down  
> the historical monolithic approaches into more tenable pieces.

Thanks for your comments, Jeff, Ilya and Nat! How would you (and others)  
feel about a Boost.Process library which only aims to replace  
std::system() with a more powerful function? You could configure the child  
process a bit (its streams, environment variables and a few more things)  
and that's all. This would be a less ambitious goal but obviously more  
easily to reach. I was under the impression that we want more? Maybe we  
still want more but settle realistically for this goal?

Boris