Nat Goodspeed wrote:
I suppose the next round would involve my arguing that it would take me many months to implement even part of the functionality in question -- and the legal staff asking whether my boss should consider someone more competent instead. :-/
The answer to that would be to contact the Boost developers for all the libraries you intend to or might use, and ask them how long it took them to code up their respective libraries. Add it all up and present that figure to your boss, pointing out that these people were at least as competent as you or any other programmer he might care to employ. Does he *really* want to wait a year or two for the code you are writing for him? You might also want to ask your boss whether he is concerned that Microsoft (or whoever wrote your compiler) might sue for use of their version of C++, or whether he thinks Bjarne Stroustrup might be sending you a writ... Of course, that would just be ridiculous, wouldn't it? ;) Definitely take your boss out for lunch - somewhere where the wine is very good, and then put your arguments to him around about, oh, I don't know, when you're having coffee and liqueurs :) Paul