"Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website For Email)" <SeeWebsiteForEmail@moderncppdesign.com> wrote
Arkadiy Vertleyb wrote:
Just out of curiosity: can you write a library that would require to pre-process your user's C++ text with one of these tools, and then convince anybody to use this library?
If Perl is better then C++ preprocessor, then it should become C++ preprocessor. But it needs to be built-in, otherwise these are apples against oranges.
I was continuing the following discussion:
Thorsten Ottosen: "Nevertheless, the preprocessor is a good way to generate some tedious code; just look inside boost.assign."
Arkadiy Vertleyb: "And sometimes, I think, it's _the only_ way. If you are interested, please take a look at typeof_internals.htm.zip in the boost sandbox file vault."
Yours Truly: "The only way as long as you commit to not look outside C++." etc. etc.
The previous context of the conversation was the preprocessor, not library construction. So I felt that within the conversation my perspective made sense. There are other ways to generate C++ code, and that's what I said and substantiated.
Well, I thought my mentioning of typeof_internals, as well as the fact that this list _is_ about library construction makes it obvious that we are discussing libraries. Outside the context of library development, I would not recommend anybody to use Boost PP (as well as template metaprogramming, BTW).
On the other hand, I agree with your point made in another post:
"Preprocessor has an obvious advantage of availability to everybody. I, for instance, am very reluctant in downloading/using tools. I suspect many people are like this, too."
But then if someone continued your argument with:
"For example, you won't find on my development systems any of awk, sed, perl and I don't know how to use any of them. However, I am a pp lib expert."
then I might opine that that person could reshuffle their priorities.
Fair enough?
Yes, but what does it have to do with this discussion? Can we convince our users to preprocess their source code with awk? Otherwise I don't understand how the tools you mentioned can be relevant in this context. Regards, Arkadiy