[Boost-users] Re: Intoductory Boost Presentation

"Jon Kalb" wrote in message news:BBD692DA.26EF9%Kalb@LibertySoft.com...

On 11/10/03 5:49 PM, "Darryl Green" wrote:

...

Hi Jon,

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-----Original Message----- From: Jon Kalb [mailto:Kalb@LibertySoft.com]

the exact number, but he found that a function call using Boost::function generated about 20K of code (in our development environment). I realize

[snip} that

in a day when gigabyte hard drives are a dime a dozen it seems miserly to worry about 20K, but that is for *one function call*. I don't think he benchmarked it to see how long it takes to execute this code, but still I think he has a point when he talks about code bloat.

[snip]

ones. But every library has some overhead cost and has some applications for which it is ill-suited. We need to evaluate each library on its own merits and never assume that because one was accepted in Boost it has some magic property that means there are no performance trade-offs or that the performance profiles of all Boost libraries are similar.

Which in this case Douglas Gregor has gone to great lengths to describe! See http://www.boost.org/doc/html/function.misc.html#id2886060, whose link is readily apparent in the Table of Contents. I have found that most boost libraries adequately describe their limitations.

Suppose users determine that Boost::function (I'm just picking on this as

an

example) is great for creating flexible interfaces, but should be avoided for any inner-loop use or where code size is at a premium. That doesn't make the library worthless, in fact, adding advice about the best situations to use the library enhances its value.

-- Jon Kalb Kalb@LibertySoft.com

----------------- Jeff Flinn Applied Dynamics, International