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

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Boost or Standard when there is the choice?
From: Ahmed Charles (acharles_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-02-14 00:36:43

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> From: s_sourceforge_at_[hidden]
> To: boost-users_at_[hidden]
> Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 19:50:47 +0000
> CC: stl_at_[hidden]
> Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Boost or Standard when there is the choice?
> 
>> The reason
>> that Microsoft's STL ends up performing better than both Dinkumware's
>> and Boost's implementations is because Microsoft cares about performance
>> and implements most of the optimizations and because, like you said,
>> Boost has more surface area. Microsoft currently cares and they know
>> their compiler/platform better.
> 
> I agree that Microsoft do a ton of customisation of the Dinkumware
> STL, or rather, they /used/ to do a ton of customisation up till
> VS2013. From my reading of the Dinkumware STL headers, most of the
> customisation was MSVC specific workarounds rather than optimisations
> per se. When running a diff between VS2013's STL and the vanilla one
> we had at BlackBerry I saw a large drop in size of the patchset as
> compared to VS2012. I didn't investigate, so in fairness the cause
> could be anything.

My point here, though apparently I didn't get it across well at all, was to
give credit to Microsoft and STL for caring about performance and pushing to
make it better. My example of make_shared was wrong, but I think the pattern
still holds that Boost starts with a 'better' implementation and the standard
implementers catch up and sometimes 'beat' Boost in some respect.

>> Note: the STL that Dinkumware ships is not the same as the one Microsoft
>> ships, so perhaps I'm just being pedantic about naming.
> 
> It's pretty close. The BB10 NDK also uses the Dinkumware STL, and it
> was not unheard of for us to compare the two when a bug turned up to
> see our STL had been fixed without us realising.

Correct, they are likely to be very close because Microsoft gives fixes back,
which for portable fixes, means everyone benefits.