On 3/29/2010 10:54 AM, Fernando Cacciola wrote:
Hi Edward,
On 3/27/2010 7:20 PM, Niels Dekker - address until 2010-10-10 wrote:
Edward Diener wrote:
I will cite a few where it seems to me that the original developer is nowhere around anymore, but this is just subjective and I might be totally wrong: ... value_init
As far as I know, Fernando Cacciola, the original developer of utility/value_init, is still around. I've been doing some maintenance to value_init as well, reviewed by Fernando. And I'm still busy fixing "Unconditional call to memset in value_initialized()" <https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/3869>. Unfortunately I haven't got enough time to finalize the fix this month, sorry! I hope to do so before the end of April.
I am aware that you have taken over some of the work on it from Fernando.
We still need to have a decision about your "Setting value_initialized<T> to a value when T is a top-level const" <https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/3472>. You know, I wasn't entirely sure about your proposed fix, so I proposed a slightly different fix. I still hope Fernando can make a choice between the two.
I never heard back from Fernando about this so I assumed he was no longer active as a maintainer of his library.
I guess you can say that, though is not I'm intentionally out of the loop. I just never have the time.
My suggested fix is so simple that it is hard for me to understand why it should take so long for a decision to be made on it unless he was no longer involved.
Actually, your fix is NOT so simple, not conceptually.
I understand that, but I did mean syntax-wise. But clearly, as my argument shows, value_init can not be used in any situation in which an object including a value_init value is declared as a const object unless you allow the value initialized value to be initialized to something other than its value-initialized default upon construction ( which is my fix ). And since a developer can hardly control how an end-user uses his object, whether as const or non-const, essentially you are telling any developer that value_init is useless to him unless he enforces the fact that his own object which has a value_init value is never const, which in my opinion makes its practical usage much, much less than it conceptually could be. How many developers do you think want to restrict their own objects to non-const ? But currently value_init is practically useless to them unless they do. Which is fine if you want it that way, but clearly developers wanting a value_init value for a potentially const object will not use it and just revert back to a default constructed object which may be constructed based on an alternative constructor. Which is a shame because value initialization as you have conceived and coded it is much clearer and safer to use.
That's why Niels proposed something else. Anyway a decision needs to be made and if I won't do it on time (for whatever reason), someone else must be given the mantaince rights. Having said that, I'll make a decision in the next few days.
It is appreciated.