--- Daryle Walker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Monday, August 25, 2003, at 2:57 PM, Peter Dimov wrote:
> has-bugs/is-slow/plain-old-sucks? There can be an orthogonal need for
> a different allocator class, which no improvement on the default one
> can fix.
>
> In this case, the Java user is 100% screwed since they can't change the
> memory manager at all. Or at least, can't change the manager without
> changing it everywhere. (Allocator policies allow mix-and-match.)
I am glad that boost is not a Java library. :)
Don't get me wrong, boost is an amazing library.
I am learning from it every minute I look at it,
great job guys thank you.
However I was a bit shocked when I realized how
ignorant boost is about memory policies.
For instance boost::signals use std::vector<>,
but it doesn't care to do anything about the allocator parameter.
Some libraries would mix global new/delete calls with user defined
memory policies and all that under the covers and the list goes on and on.
I don't like the STL allocators too much but I'd like to
see a modern C++ library that has consistent and
clear memory policies.
Instead of having an allocator template parameter
for each class, perhaps we could design a global
memory management class that can be scaled horizontally
on the data type basis.
It will require some way to associate a user defined allocator
with data type.
Then we would need to define STL-style allocators that
will call the boost memory manager.
The boost memory policy could be along the lines:
1. All boost classes have to use boost::allocator<>
with STL allocators internally.
std::vector<int, boost::allocator<int> >;
2. If a boost class needs to create an object it must call boost::mm.
int *x = boost::getmm()->create<int>(1);
...
boost::getmm()->destroy(x,1);
3. The user can customize memory policies for her class by calling regmm
boost::getmm()->regmm( MyAllocator<MyClass>() );
IMHO, in terms of memory management, this simple
policy will make boost to look more like a C++ library not Java.
It doesn't provide the flexibility of STL allocators but it
does give the user some control over the memory.
Eugene
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