Boost advocacy - help needed

Question

Possible duplicates
Is there a reason to not use Boost?
What are the advantages of using the C++ BOOST libraries?

Answer 1

I had to maintain a component using that old vintage Tools.h++ from Roguewave, on a Solaris system.

On Solaris, if we want to use boost, we need to use either gcc, or SunStudio with STLport implementation of the standard (instead of Roguewave one). And as Tools.h++ requires the old Roguewave pre-standard implementation of the standard -- on Solaris --, I had to give up on boost.

In the end I rewrote a simplified version of a few boost-like features I needed.

If you are in that same situation (*) , you would not be able to move from Roguewave library to boost that easily. There is a non negligible cost in this operation, as for instance pointer containers from both libraries have quite different interfaces.

(*) Where we can't slowly change bits by bits of the old code to progressively use boost. In that situation, the migration has to be radical and to change simultaneously every occurrence of Tools.h++ by something more trendy, or even better.

NB: Most people are able to progressively use boost in old projects, and may miss a very important, and yes technical, point. Hence my negative answer.