[Xorp-hackers] Boost use

[Ben Greear]

On 04/26/2010 02:28 AM, Bruce Simpson wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Nothing like a good healthy rigorous technical debate on a caffeinated
> Monday morning.
>
> On 04/26/10 04:45, Ben Greear wrote:
>>
>> The ref-pointer logic might could be done better, but I don't think we
>> need
>> to include boost to do that. We could, for instance, use a 'RefCountable'
>> base class that stores a ref count, and a RefPointer objec that stores
>> a pointer
>> to RefCountable and manages the object lifetime. In general, I think we
>> should minimize ref-pointer usage where possible, but in some places,
>> it is quite useful.
>
> Thoroughly disagree,
> the above is more or less suggesting reinventing the Boost smart_ptr
> library.
>
> Why reinvent when you can reuse?

By the way, I just tried to understand that boost smart_ptr and weak_ptr
by looking at the boost code.  I personally find it basically unreadable,
but I have never been too good at templates.

If I make an attempt at re-doing the smart-ptr logic, I think I'll
use inheritance instead of templates, as I find that type of code
much easier to understand.  It's not as general purpose, since your ref-counted
objects must inherit from a common base class, but since I think ref-pointers
should be used sparingly anyway, that shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks,
Ben

-- 
Ben Greear <greearb at candelatech.com>
Candela Technologies Inc  http://www.candelatech.com