generic way to access C++ libs?

[Jacek Generowicz]

aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli) writes:

> Jacek Generowicz <jacek.generowicz at cern.ch> wrote:
>    ...
> > > Anyway, if my guess is correct that the demand for such a 'c++types'
> > > is really burning only on Windows,
> > 
> > What's behind this guess ?
> 
> The fact that Windows is the only widespread OS where getting a compiler
> isn't as easy as installing it, for free, off the OS media.

Ah, indeed. Once again my unusual environment stops me from seeing the
blatantly obvious :-)

> > And I also suspect that, in practice, there will be a fairly low
> > limit on the size of library that Boost can wrap, because of
> > compile-time memory consumption. ISTRT wrapping about 20-30
> > methods taken from about 5 classes used up half a Gb of RAM. So
> > you probably don't want the throw Boost at a whole library
> > indiscriminantly.
> 
> Wow -- THAT bad?!  Eeek.

I went back and checked.

38 methods (4 classes)
2 non-member functions.
4 instantiations of std::vector, with just one method each.

Compiling this with 256Mb RAM made the machine unusable for about 10
mins.

Upgrading to 768Mb RAM, made it not need to swap ... but it still
wasn't a breeze.

Sorry, can't be bothered to check exactly how much memory it does use.