On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Artyom <artyomtnk@yahoo.com> wrote:
1. "Contiguity"
Continuity and c_str() is one of the most important properties of C++ string (that is BTW required by C++0x)
Eliminating c_str() doesn't mean there's no easy way to produce a contiguous NTBS.
Yes, just it can't be really "char const *c_str() CONST" or would require extra stuff like linearization.
It would turn away 90% of users.
It might turn you away because you obviously love std::string. Generalizing is a different matter and is largely a hot-air blowing exercise that is futile for convincing anybody.
3. non-uniform-memory-architecture
Give me a break... Who uses NUMA for string processing?!
Anyone running on a multiprocessor system with AMD Opterons or Intel Nehalem or Tukwila processors. You don't always get to choose the kind of architecture your code will run on, and those systems are all NUMA. But even when you do get to choose, some very large problems that would be appropriate to NUMA involve lots of strings.
1. The locality of cache or private processor cache does not makes them "NUMA"
What makes an architecture NUMA is when each CPU manages memory by embedding the memory manager in the CPU. By not having a single memory controller in the system, effectively a CPU's access to the whole available memory is non-uniform because it will have faster access to some memory while having to go through other CPUs if it needs to access memory that's controlled by another CPU. It looks like you don't know what NUMA is from what you're saying.
2. In such case it would be even better to have non-shared strings
Weh?
4. About string builder. Most languages require is as they don't have "reserve" also if you want efficient string builder use std::ostream with nice stream buffer.
There's nothing efficient about std::ostream, no matter what buffer you put on it.
I beg your pardon? It is efficient as all functions are as efficient as memcpy with exceptions of overflow/underflow happens which require some virtual functions calls which are pretty fast as well...
Also 99% of issues are just solved with reserve. (and I work with text parsing, combining and processing a lot)
And you obviously don't work with systems that have to do this multiple thousand times in one second to not know what the effects of NUMA are and why allocating a contiguous amount of memory is the performance killer that it is.
This, I believe, is a persistent misunderstanding. IIUC, Dean is only suggesting to avoid giving UTF-8 any special status in the string's interface. He's not arguing against using UTF-8 storage in the implementation.
The entire "buzz" started with the fact that under windows we have problems with string encoding not being UTF-8
No, the entire buzz started when people like you suggested treating std::string as UTF-8 by default which I have maintained already is largely unnecessary from a design perspective.
This is classic example of how trying to do something "cool" gives us theoretically interesting and cool things that are useless in real world where simple and straight forward things actually work a way better.
That may ultimately turn out to be true, but your reaction here seems so over-the-top and premature as to make that conclusion very unconvincing.
This article written from wrong understanding of real problems - instead of solving a problem it suggests some idea for some cases not looking to the problem in hole.
I think you mean "in whole". The article was written from the understanding that the real problem stems from how std::string is broken. It already identifies why it's broken. It seems that you're just happy to attack people and the work they do more than you are interested in solving problems. If you disagree with what's being said argue on the merits of "why". Mud-slinging and sitting on a high horse and just saying "blech, you're wrong" is not helping solve any technical problems. I've already pointed out some of the problems why I think std::string is broken. Now if you disagree with the things I pointed out that's fine, have it your way. I'm not here to please you, I'm here to make a technical point and a contribution that others may very well welcome.
Starting from "std::string is broken" statement...
You obviously love it like the way it is so I don't think I need to be convincing you otherwise. Good luck with that. -- Dean Michael Berris about.me/deanberris