"Chad Nelson" <chad.thecomfychair@gmail.com> wrote in message news:20110315112008.04d53571@ubuntu...
However, since are provided, I'd like them to be handled as well as possible. Chad has already said that he expects support for them to improve and that's good enough for me, since it won't require breaking the interface.
Maybe I've missed it but I haven't seen concrete ideas as to how exactly Chad plans to do it [...]
<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.devel/215984>
True, I did miss that one...however AFAICT this is a proposal by Jeffrey Lee Hellrung and it does not quite match what SW was saying ("...since it won't require breaking the interface") as it is a proposal for expanding the interface to accept user defined xint types and, additionally, to which you conclude with "Yes, there's plenty to do before I even seriously think about that." It is also not entirely clear that it would provide 'true fixed-size integer' support (i.e. with near zero overhead) nor that you/XInt would provide a fixed-sized xint type (although, given all the fuss about all of this, I would be content with just the option to be able to provide a fixed-size xint type myself if the library in the end provides no other way of new-virtual-throw-free way of using it). "As said so many times before", it would be a much easier first hand solution to simply separate the algorithms into separate, private, preferably non-template functions. This would benefit even the public-algorithms and concept-modeling-xint-types (to which SW objected) type of design as it would reduce template bloat... -- "What Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate." Neil Postman