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- [/
- / Copyright (c) 2003-2019 Christopher M. Kohlhoff (chris at kohlhoff dot com)
- /
- / Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying
- / file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)
- /]
- [section:rationale Rationale]
- Most programs interact with the outside world in some way, whether it be via a
- file, a network, a serial cable, or the console. Sometimes, as is the case with
- networking, individual I/O operations can take a long time to complete. This
- poses particular challenges to application development.
- Boost.Asio provides the tools to manage these long running operations, without
- requiring programs to use concurrency models based on threads and explicit
- locking.
- The Boost.Asio library is intended for programmers using C++ for systems programming,
- where access to operating system functionality such as networking is often
- required. In particular, Boost.Asio addresses the following goals:
- * [*Portability.] The library should support a range of commonly used operating
- systems, and provide consistent behaviour across these operating systems.
- * [*Scalability.] The library should facilitate the development of network
- applications that scale to thousands of concurrent connections. The library
- implementation for each operating system should use the mechanism that best
- enables this scalability.
- * [*Efficiency.] The library should support techniques such as scatter-gather
- I/O, and allow programs to minimise data copying.
- * [*Model concepts from established APIs, such as BSD sockets.] The
- BSD socket API is widely implemented and understood, and is covered in much
- literature. Other programming languages often use a similar interface for
- networking APIs. As far as is reasonable, Boost.Asio should leverage existing
- practice.
- * [*Ease of use.] The library should provide a lower entry barrier for new
- users by taking a toolkit, rather than framework, approach. That is, it should
- try to minimise the up-front investment in time to just learning a few basic
- rules and guidelines. After that, a library user should only need to understand
- the specific functions that are being used.
- * [*Basis for further abstraction.] The library should permit the development
- of other libraries that provide higher levels of abstraction. For example,
- implementations of commonly used protocols such as HTTP.
- Although Boost.Asio started life focused primarily on networking, its concepts of
- asynchronous I/O have been extended to include other operating system resources
- such as serial ports, file descriptors, and so on.
- [endsect]
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