[geos-devel] boost

[Mateusz Łoskot]

Mark Coletti wrote:
> On 3/1/06, *strk at refractions.net <mailto:strk at refractions.net>* 
> <strk at refractions.net <mailto:strk at refractions.net>> wrote:
> 
>     On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 12:10:32PM +0100, Mateusz Å?oskot wrote:
>     ...
>      > BTW, I like strk's idea to incorporate Boost libraries to GEOS.
> 
>     This won't be a simple process, but I think it's worth starting.
>     What do other developers think about it ?
>     Is a dependency on boost acceptable ?
> 
> 
> I've been an Boost fan almost from its inception.  To me, Boost is 
> almost a mandatory library for C++ developers.  

Definitely, agreed!

 > The reference counting
> shared pointers are, alone, worth using. 

Yup, they are simply a robust garbage collector for C++ ;-)

> Then there's the string 
> handling, mathematical operators, "optional" data types, variant types, 
> a plethora of convenience classes, data/time manipulation, regular 
> expressions, etc. 

+ huge graph libraries with Dijkstra's and other shortest
path algorithms
+ statistical computing and many many more.

For those insterested and not familiar with Boost:
Here is a higher-level of table of content:
http://boost.org/libs/libraries.htm

and, as an example, lower level huge list of topics - Graph library:
http://boost.org/libs/graph/doc/table_of_contents.html

 > It's a cornucopia of useful things.  Once you start
> using Boost, you won't go back.

Yup.

> (I've still yet to convince the qgis folks to make the switch, alas.)

IMHO QT is not templates friendly, but I may be wrong.
p.s. When I'll be back to QGIS project I can join you in this
convincing operation :-)

Cheers
-- 
Mateusz Łoskot
http://mateusz.loskot.net