Any plan to absorb the boost stuff

OrNot

Hi,
Recently, I am using boost's thread and smart pointer library in my project.
It makes me miss the ice's very much also. They really work very similarly. I just feel curious that if one day the boost thread or smart pointer library is taken as part of the std implementation, will Ice replace the existing home made thread (or smart ptr) library with that ? I remember Michi once mentioned this topic in one of newsletters before.
Just for the sake of curiosity.


BTW: Ice 's thread and smart pointer can be separately used out of ICE easily, right? I didn't investigate it carefully.


Regards
OrNot

bernard

Once threads and smart pointers become part of the C++ standard library included with the mainstream C++ compilers (Visual Studio, GCC etc.), yes, we will most likely adopt them and deprecate the corresponding IceUtil classes. Maybe we'll keep some of them if there is no good equivalent in C++ 0x .

Today, you can already use boost together with Ice--for your threads, mutexes, smart pointers etc. We don't intend to use boost in Ice precisely to ensure this 'boost compatibility': if Ice had a dependency of specific versions of boost libraries, you would have to use the same versions, and I am sure this would create headaches for some projects.

BTW: Ice 's thread and smart pointer can be separately used out of ICE easily, right? I didn't investigate it carefully.

Yes, you can use Ice C++ threads and smart pointers independently of Ice: you just need the IceUtil library and corresponding headers.

Cheers,
Bernard