[litwindow-users] General question to all of you: boost library?

[Hajo K. <mai...@ha...>]

Hi all,

for future of the lit window library I almost see no way around using 
the boost library (www.boost.org). There are a couple of reasons for this:

+ boost contains a small and very good parser which is needed for the 
RapidUI expression language. This will replace the clumsy 
make_expr<type> and make_const<type> syntax and allow very clean and 
readable rules such as

wnd::mainwindow.caption = "Document: " + 
data::mycurrentwindow.document.filename

+ boost contains many useful macros that hide the quirks and 
idiosyncrasies of the different compilers. This would make life a lot 
easier for me to expand support for other compilers.

+ boost comes with a couple of very useful pointer classes: smart 
pointers, scoped pointers etc...

+ boost has a easy to use and powerful c++ signal implementation

The downside of this is that the lit window library then depends on yet 
another library which makes installation a bit more complicated.

My questions:

? Do you know the boost library?
? Do you think downloading and installing another library is a major 
obstacle?
? Should a Lit Window Library distribution include boost, even if it 
will increase in size by a couple of MB.
? Should a Lit Window Library distribution include only those parts of 
boost that it needs rather than the entire boost library?
? Should a binary - prebuild version for the Lit Window Library - 
including Boost binaries - be available? If so, for what compilers?

Finally I'd like to phase out support for MSVC version 6. The Lit Window 
Library requires templates and it is getting increasingly difficult to 
work around the MSVC 6 limitations.

BTW, if you haven't heard of the boost library before, I think you 
really should have a look at it. It is an excellent library and don't be 
put off by the very abstract and highly technical look of it.

Best regards and looking forward to your comments

Hajo