Re: [Boost-users] Boost or Standard when there is the choice?

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Boost or Standard when there is the choice?
From: Niall Douglas (s_sourceforge_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-02-11 15:08:59

On 11 Feb 2014 at 20:23, Paolo Bolzoni wrote:

> I was wondering, what is the best pratice when you can select between
> a standard solution or a boost one?
> For example, std::tie or boost::tie? std::unordered_map or boost::unordered_map?
> 
> Personally I tend to use std solutions, but does it make sense?

A standard library implementation is /probably/ more stable, better 
tested and more micro-optimised than Boost *eventually*. I stress the 
eventually - right now, C++ 11 standard libraries are still getting 
the bugs wringed out of them. but they are settling down and in the 
past year certainly I've found bugs more frequently in Boost 
implementations of C++11 features than in say Dinkumware's STL.

Regarding the micro optimisation remark, I make this purely based on 
my experience with Visual Studio where the Dinkumware implementation 
almost always outperforms or is similar to a Boost implementation, 
especially in VS2013. This is partially because a Boost 
implementation usually has a lot more features and therefore a larger 
code footprint, but it's also because Dinkumware do a lot of micro 
optimisation once code is known stable.

Lastly, using STL implementations is probably more future proof over 
say the next twenty years than using Boost. I can certainly see that 
once C++11 is ubiquitous, the incentive to maintain Boost C++11 
implementations of standard features will drop substantially. Future 
users of your code base will then have to port over code away from 
Boost to gain timely access to fixes.

All that said, I still choose Boost.Thread primitives over STL 
primitives, mainly due to the much superior feature set and I know 
many of those superior features will end up in C++1y, so why wait 
till then? Note that I use the namespace mapping technique to map 
/some/ implementation into a private namespace, that makes switching 
to a STL implementation later fairly trivial.

Niall

-- 
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