Boost library acceptance in industry

Question

I have seen lots of people suggesting the Boost library on Stack Overflow, so I am also thinking of learning it. But today I came across this link: http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/cppguide.xml#Boost
I wanted to know about its acceptance in industry at a broader level. My current company also doesn't allow me to use this so I am confused whether to look into this or not.

Answer 1

Parts of Boost library is currently being accepted into the Standard library for C++0x and it is regarded as one of the top libs with a high industry acceptance. I'm actually unaware of any other library getting accepted into the C++ Standard Library on such a large scale.

"Ten Boost libraries are already included in the C++ Standards Committee's Library Technical Report (TR1) and will be in the new C++0x Standard now being finalized. C++0x will also include several more Boost libraries in addition to those from TR1. More Boost libraries are proposed for TR2."

Answer 2

You should definately look into this. Don't go by Google or any other large institution. They generally have to work to a subset of any complex language like C++. Hence, they'll have restrictions on which parts they can use so that it's easier to hire and train engineers to use the code base.

Additionally, Boost leverages many aspects of the higher forms of functionality within C++, case in point template meta-programming. Boost provides for a safer, though bulkier, form of functions as first class objects. They add in a more powerful "bind" which works so well with the standard library that I'd be lost without it. Finally, they have in place tuples and hash tables, both fundamental datatypes in modern development libraries.

In short, I really can't name one reason why you wouldn't want to look at Boost, even just to learn something. It's peer reviewed and largely platform independent. The source code is a treasure trove of information and more advanced programming techniques.