On 2012-12-12 23:47, Boris Schaeling wrote:
On Sun, 09 Dec 2012 14:13:27 +0100, Klaim - Joël Lamotte <mjklaim@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 2:06 PM, Roland Bock <rbock@eudoxos.de> wrote:
I say: Do both.
* Abstract away all differences for those who do not care about platform specific ways of doing this or that. * Allow those who /do/ care to use platform specific methods in addition (although I would prefer wrappers for system functions).
Just my 2ct. I'd fall under the first category.
Exactly the same for me.
Sounds fair to me! And having added the header file boost/process/mitigate.hpp recently users have now a choice. Some might still not be happy with the options to choose from. But there is now a choice at least. :) And as #ifdefs have been mentioned in other threads in the previous months: The only use case I'm aware of where #ifdefs are ultimately required is waiting asynchronously for child processes to exit. For anything else it is possible to write cross-platform code (unless someone uses intentionally features which are only available on one platform, like file descriptors > 2 on POSIX). If anyone runs into a problem here, please let me know and I see what I can do about it.
Boris The main difference in our views is that I'd use the "abstract-away-all-differences"-variant as default and the platform specific things as add-on. The current implementation is the opposite. The mitigate header is not even included by defaul, and hints towards it sound like a warning, not an encouragement to use it.
IMHO, the main reason for a Process-library in boost would be to have something that just works with a wide range of compilers and operating systems. Or, to cite boost file system: *Portability between operating systems.* * At the C++ syntax level, it is convenient to learn and use one interface regardless of the operating system. * At the semantic level, behavior of code is reasonably portable across operating systems. * Dual generic or native path format support encourages program portability, yet still allows communication with users in system specific formats. Or Scott Meyers: "Make Interfaces Easy to Use Correctly and Hard to Use Incorrectly" To me that implies: Platform specific stuff only if I really need it. Regards, Roland