Use Boost for some backend functions #51
Description
Boost Usage Proposal
This proposal comes from the task of moving our non-GUI code to a toolkit-neutral state. Boost is a very good use for that.
With Boost, we can do many things. For example, there is Boost's ASIO library (Boost.Asio), which allows us to use networking features. This is useful for having a cross-platform implementation of our IPC server, which we do use for various tasks (I'm still looking at it to see what exactly it does). Additionally, Boost has a DLL/DSO loading library (Boost.DLL) which will assist in loading plugins and other external libraries that we use (most notably FFmpeg). There are many more libraries to Boost that might provide helpful utilities where the standard C++ library lacks in comparison. (The main point of comparison here is between Boost and C++'s standard library. I see that some of the features that Boost provides can also be useful beyond the C++ language).
Advantages
I might add more advantages here as time continues
- Assists with our library separation efforts.
- One library for several different things.
Disadvantages
I might add more advantages here as time continues
- Another new dependency