On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 1:44 PM, Andrey Semashev <andrey.semashev@gmail.com> wrote:
Emil Dotchevski wrote: I assume there can be connection with other Boost libraries, like Boost.NumericConversion or Boost.Units. This library has potential to become a common framework for conversion facilities that are reimplemented here and there quite often. And I feel that a common and well recognizable interface is very important for such a framework. That is, I think it would be better to use a common name for conversions in either direction (well, the direction doesn't matter anyway, from perspective of such a framework).
Agreed. The disagreement seems to be about the relationship between such conversion library and to- and from- string conversions. IMO, from the viewpoint of convert(), to- and from- string conversions should be treated as independent interface, much like Boost.NumericConversion or Boost.Units, etc. I'm strongly opposed to the approach of "convert() is great for strings, maybe we'll extend it later for other things." Maybe you will, maybe you'll find out that it can't be extended because nobody thought about convert()ing anything but strings. In fact, merely thinking about the other types isn't enough, we need practical experience with "the mother of all conversions" library before it is added to Boost. :) (Though as it is evident, you'll still have hard time convincing me that when all I need is to convert a foo to std::string, I have to use "the mother of all conversions" library instead of the straight forward to_string.) Emil Dotchevski Reverge Studios, Inc. http://www.revergestudios.com/reblog/index.php?n=ReCode