Re: [Boost-users] intrusive_ptr vs shared-ptr

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] intrusive_ptr vs shared-ptr
From: gast128 (gast128_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-01-20 16:43:18

> Well, all these points either have a reasonable solution/workaround
> that doesn't complicate the design much, or describe a quite
> "marginal" use-case.
> But the lack of weak-ptr makes impossible an object existence
> tracking, which is commonly used in a wide range of tasks. In some
> cases this would complicate the design and make it more error-prone
> (eg. manual breaking of circular references), and in some other cases
> it renders completely impossible a use of some facilities (like
> Boost.Signals2).

Well I wouldnt say these items are 'marginal', because most come from real life
scenarios. You can work around things but it is always that u have to remember
that there were some boundary cases with shared_ptr. It took me some time to
convince my colleagues to swap from raw pointers to shared pointers and having
some boundary cases doesn't help then. I still prefer shared pointers, but I am
not sure if all in all they would be better than e.g. intrusive_ptr's with ref
counting (even without lacking the weak_ptr feature). Note that i look upon this
from a client perspective (i.e. large data acquisition application), not from a
library builder perspective.