e38b99f7   
   From: dave@boostpro.com   
      
   on Tue Dec 27 2011, Ebenezer  wrote:   
      
   > On Dec 24, 4:07 pm, Dave Abrahams  wrote:   
   >> on Fri Dec 23 2011, Gene Bushuyev  wrote:   
   >   
   >>   
   >>> I also found that automatic code generation can often be a better   
   >>> alternative to complicated macros.   
   >>   
   >> My experience writing Boost.Python led me to the opposite conclusion.  I   
   >> started out with some Python scripts to generate the overload sets I   
   >> needed, and eventually replaced them with the use of Boost.Preprocessor   
   >> metaprogramming because:   
   >>   
   >> 1. Before the change, my users couldn't figure out how to run the   
   >>    scripts when they needed to extend the number of arguments supported   
   >>    by the library, whereas afterward all they needed was   
   >>    -DBOOST_PYTHON_MAX_ARITY=25 on their command line.   
   >   
   > Perhaps you should have made your code generator an on line   
   > code generator.  (That doesn't imply it is proprietary -- if   
   > you want you could still make the source code avaialable.)   
   > That way people wouldn't have had to deal with the scripts.   
      
   Sure...at the cost of a bunch more labor, web programming (which I   
   didn't know how to do at the time) and server resources (which I didn't   
   have at the time).   
      
   >> 2. The scripts were actually harder to maintain than the   
   >>   Boost.Preprocessor code.  I had tried to write a reasonably general   
   >>   system for doing this code generation, but then I had to maintain   
   >>   it... and coming back to it after a little while was painful.   
   >   
   > I believe you, but would have been inclined to use C++ for the code   
   > generator.   
      
   I don't see how that could have made any substantial difference.  I am a   
   fluent Python programmer.  Neither C++ nor Python is particularly well   
   suited to generating C++ code.  The advantages of having the generator   
   already integrated with the compiler outweighed everything else in the end.   
      
   --   
   Dave Abrahams   
   BoostPro Computing   
   http://www.boostpro.com   
      
      
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