[imron]

> Then don't use boost.

After using boost in several projects and regretting it each time (slow compile times, painful to configure), I finally learned my lesson and "don't use boost" is now one of my guiding principles when programming in C++.

[ndh2]

While I would mostly agree, I would humbly suggest a small nudge in perspective: Boost does not equal Boost. While I passionately hate most of Boost, I find boost::optional to be one of the most useful template classes. So you shouldn't treat Boost as one library, but as a collection of different libraries. Same goes for STL in my opinion.

[imron]

I think boost has definitely had a positive impact on c++ and the fact that large amounts of it are now in (or had a major influence on) the std library certainly makes it much easier to forgoe using it.