On Nov 18, 2004, at 1:10 PM, Murray Cumming wrote:

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Very simple explanation here: my comments were about libsigc++ 1.2.

It would be best for us to ignore them then. The differences are quite large.

Yes, please ignore them.

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I've glanced briefly at libstdc++ 2

For the record, Doug almost certainly means "libsigc++" instead of "libstdc++".

Correct.

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and was pleasantly surprised. I'd like to look into it further, but do not have the time now. I've been saying for a while that the Signals interface is not ready for standardization because we only had the one implementation (in Boost) and that it was not solid enough for standardization. However, with libstdc++ 2 adopting a similar interface, we might be able to converge on a single, solid interface for Signals & Slots within the C++ Standard Library. Library Technical Report 2 is open for submissions, and signals & slots have been on the wish list since the beginning...

In any case, a thread titled "Boost Signals & Slots vs. libsigc++" is treading on dangerous territory :)

I doubt that Boost Signals and libsigc++ 2 are significantly different.

My cursory review of the libSIGc++ 2 reference documentation seems to indicate that the interfaces are similar.

A comparison should probably start by looking at the application code needed to 1. Create a signal 2. Connect a slot (callback function) to a signal. 2.2 For a member method. 2.3 For a non-member or static function. 3. Disconnect a slot. 4. Bind an extra parameter, so that e.g. a slot with 4 parameters can be used with a signal with 3 parameters. I don't personally find the more complex adaptors interesting.

I'm not in a position to do this at the moment, although possibly in the future. It would be *wonderful* if someone went off and studied both libraries in-depth to make this comparison, especially if that person was not intimately familiar with either library beforehand.

Please do try to warn us if Boost Signals seems near to being approved. We would like to try porting gtkmm to it then.

There is no current effort to write a proposal to bring the Boost.Signals interface to the C++ committee (that I know of). If this does happen, it will be _after_ we have a detailed comparison of both libraries and, of course, I will announce it on both the libSIGc++ and Boost mailing lists. Doug