On Thu, 2007-08-30 at 22:07 -0400, Andrew Sutton wrote:
I'm more than willing to spend some serious time working on Boost.Graph this semester - It won't be as much as I spent this summer, but at least a couple days a week.
Great! I am, of course, willing to spend what time I can on this long-overdue project.
Besides, the person working on Boost docs for IBD was me.
I should have known that :)
Unfortunately, I've only taken a quick look at pBGL so I don't know too much about it. Those improvements would have to be pointed out.
Sure. The one major improvement that we're working on in the pBGL that's also useful for the BGL is the "named vertices" extension to graphs. The basic idea is very simple: if the vertex property somehow contains a "name" buried inside it, we can use that name as an alternative way to refer to the vertex. For example, say we have a City structure that we attach to each vertex: struct City { City() {} City(const std::string& name, int population = -1) : name(name), population(population) { } std::string name; int population; }; If we tell the BGL that the "name" field of the City structure is the name of the corresponding vertex, then graphs will now allow us to refer to cities by name: typedef adjacency_list<...> RoadMap; RoadMap road_map; Vertex bloomington = add_vertex(City("Bloomington", 69291), map); Vertex indianapolis = add_vertex(City("Indianapolis", 791926), map); Vertex chicago = add_vertex(City("Chicago", 9500000), map); add_edge(bloomington, "Indianapolis", map); add_edge("Indianapolis", chicago, map); add_edge("Indianapolis", "Cincinatti", map); The graph handles the mapping from names like "Indianapolis" to vertex descriptors, even adding vertices when no such vertex exists (as is the case for "Cincinatti"). How many times have users had to create and maintain an std::map<std::string, vertex_descriptor> to do this same thing? Too many, in my opinion. - Doug