Dear Boosters,
We would like to ask for an informal review of our Relational Template Library (RTL). In particular we would like to find out whether you think that:
1) relational algebra is a useful instrument for C++ programmers; I believe I can see it's potential. It might take a while to become commonplace but so did the STL and most of boost ;) On the other hand there should be quite a lot of "database-folks" around that perhaps find this
2) The solution based on template meta-programming is suitable for such library; I don't think this is a problem, in fact I don't really see how it could be made non-intrusive and type-safe and generic and efficient otherwise? (All
Arkadiy Vertleyb wrote: pretty straightforward? properties I expect to find in a modern boost-lib).
3) RTL itself is a good start, and, with some changes and corrections, can expect to eventially become part of Boost (if not -- why?). Providing that no unforseen showstoppers are lurking in the code or concept I'd say I'm fairly optimistic about it becoming an accepted boost component.
I would be interested in seeing some performance numbers though. And I would guess I'm not alone. (This is a C++ crowd after all ;-) ). Providing some, hopefully encouraging, data similar to what Joaquín did in the indexed_set documentation for example would be a good start. My experience is that the deeper sceptics quite often uses performace, rightfully or not, as a means for rejection... ("virtual functions/smart pointers/rtti/STL/streams/ are slow", "templates bloat code" etc..) Finally, as I think David Bergman also expressed in an earlier mail about RTL, it would(will!) be really interesting to see how the interaction with RTL, iterator adaptors, a view lib (like VTL), a sequence-wrapped STL (iterator_range or such) and Lambda functionality will evolve and shape the future C++! Regards // Fredrik Blomqvist