Hello, liam. Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 6:53:28 PM you wrote: lm> I would say that is not ugly but good practice ie "do not pollute the lm> global namespace" Ok. Let's take the boost example: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_37_0/libs/bind/bind_as_compose.cpp , try to compile it with some modifications: #include <boost/config.hpp> #if defined(BOOST_MSVC) #pragma warning(disable: 4786) // identifier truncated in debug info #pragma warning(disable: 4710) // function not inlined #pragma warning(disable: 4711) // function selected for automatic inline expansion #pragma warning(disable: 4514) // unreferenced inline removed #endif // // bind_as_compose.cpp - function composition using bind.hpp // // Version 1.00.0001 (2001-08-30) // // Copyright (c) 2001 Peter Dimov and Multi Media Ltd. // // Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See // accompanying file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at // http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt) // #include <tr1/functional> #include <iostream> #include <string> #include <boost/bind.hpp> #include <boost/function.hpp> std::string f(std::string const & x) { return "f(" + x + ")"; } std::string g(std::string const & x) { return "g(" + x + ")"; } std::string h(std::string const & x, std::string const & y) { return "h(" + x + ", " + y + ")"; } std::string k() { return "k()"; } template<class F> void test(F f) { std::cout << f("x", "y") << '\n'; } int main() { using namespace boost; using namespace std; using namespace tr1; function<void()> foo; // compose_f_gx test( bind(f, bind(g, _1)) ); // compose_f_hxy test( bind(f, bind(h, _1, _2)) ); // compose_h_fx_gx test( bind(h, bind(f, _1), bind(g, _1)) ); // compose_h_fx_gy test( bind(h, bind(f, _1), bind(g, _2)) ); // compose_f_k test( bind(f, bind(k)) ); return 0; } and face out following errors: g++ -std=c++0x -IP:\projects\common\boost_1.36.0 boost_test.cpp boost_test.cpp: In function 'int main()': boost_test.cpp:60: error: reference to 'function' is ambiguous cc1plus.exe: error: candidates are: #'tree_list' not supported by dump_decl#<declaration error> P:\projects\common\boost_1.36.0/boost/function/function_base.hpp:99: error: template<class Signature> struct boost::function boost_test.cpp:60: error: 'foo' was not declared in this scope Compiler is gcc 4.3.x. As you can see: 1. Global namespace was not polluted. Namespaces exposed only into the 'main' function scope. 2. Code is fully conform to the boost documentation. -- Best Regards, Sergey mailto:flex_ferrum@artberg.ru