-----Original Message----- From: boost-bounces@lists.boost.org [mailto:boost-bounces@lists.boost.org] On Behalf Of Dave Steffen Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 12:07 PM To: boost@lists.boost.org Subject: Re: [boost] Boost Units library preview

Greer, Joe writes: [...]

...

Also, make sure that you are solving problems that are really > likely to occur. It is nice to be as absolutely type safe as > possible, but often that gets in the way of getting real work done > as well. Just a thought.

Ya know, that's a very good point, and it puts a name to that little nagging thing that's been bugging me during this whole discussion.

What, exactly, are this library's use cases?

All kinds of people want all kinds of things. It seems to me that most of the discussion about these libraries - both the current one and the-library-recently-renamed Quan - are circular swirls of "I'd like it to do this" and "but then what about that".

If, by the current one, you mean the previewed Boost Units library, I'll beg to differ. The scope and goals of that library are IMHO sufficient but minimal. By sufficient, I mean that the required dimensional analysis operations and unit measurement arithmetic are included. By minimal, I mean there are no input/output interfaces, string formatting/parsing, error propagation/approximation, or other associated functionality.

Maybe these questions have been answered, and I didn't notice 'em going past; but based on these discussions, I'm inclined to think that in general, no two people agree on exactly _why_ these libraries are useful.

Oh I believe the involved parties have a very good idea of _why_ these libraries are useful. The point of contention is, what exactly is "useful"? Or more accurately, "required"? Eric.