It requires a lot of work.
How come?
The serialization library does not provide a model for in-memory property storage,
It's not supposed to.
std::vector, std::map, multi_index, tree - take your pick
nor does it provide a windows registry archive (the last time I saw).
Ok - Implement one. No need to reinvent the whole infrastructure.
Applying serialization to appropriate fields implies I already have those fields somehow organized.
Why? Or rather what do you mean by that.
The way I see it, PT is the serialization library plus in-memory property storage.
The way I see it we already have better solution for either task.
Perhaps it could have used serialization internally and serialization archives for loading and saving.
Better stop reinventing the wheel and just write an add-ons to excising solution.
As I said before, the real difference could be the loading and saving of some of the properties in the memory storage, without having to load/save them all.
I still do not see any difficulties implementing this without PT.
If I understand correctly, your point is that implementing a library that: 1. Reads and saves hierarchical configurations from/to several different storages (including windows registry and XML) 2. Maintains an accessible memory storage for configuration data 3. Is able to load/save individual configuration parameters without having to load/save all of them is not a lot of work, using serialization and existing containers. Since "lot" is a subjective term, my point is that using a separate library that puts it all together with an easy and extensible (for storages) interface is a lot easier than develop my own solution. The possible use of serialization or container classes in this library are implementation details to me. Moreover, since read/writing configurations is a very common task, for many people learning how to use serialization just to assess feasibility is not possible, and there is no single library that does what I enumerated before, IMHO such a library has a place in boost. Another question is if that library is PT :-) Cheers Jorge