From: Douglas Gregor (gregod_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-08-28 16:12:40
On Thursday 28 August 2003 04:40 pm, Gregory Colvin wrote:
> I also have no objection, and much sympathy, for having a clear
> memory management policy for Boost libraries. But again, it is a
> matter of people who care about and understand the issue doing the
> necessary work, just like everything else here at Boost.
Moreover, it's not a matter of convincing certain people that a clear memory
management policy should be adopted by Boost and handed down for developers
to do the work. Boost doesn't work that way. Policies always come from the
bottom up: someone has a problem, so they fix it in the libraries that matter
most to them. With that knowledge of _how_ to fix the problem correctly, they
can approach other developers and say "hey, I think we should fix this
problem in library X; here's how we did it in library Y". Eventually, most of
the libraries will support it, and _then_ we can approve it as a Boost
"policy" so that future libraries will follow it.
The most productive thing we could do right now would be to end this policy
discussion. Start with smart_ptr and address *specific* documentation and
*specific* implementation problems in this library, with resolutions specific
to that library. Is there a library that does it well? Reference that library
and state why it does it well, so that others may follow.
Doug