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Asked: 2026-06-07T01:07:37+00:00

I am writing a template algorithm that makes use of boost::accumulators and the Eigen

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I am writing a template algorithm that makes use of boost::accumulators and the Eigen linear algebra library.
While compiling, the visual studio compiler (cl.exe), memory consumption peaks at over 2.5GB of RAM, and my PC (windows 7 32 bit with 3GB virtual address space) becomes unresponsive (for quite a long time: ~1 minute). The binary files (.obj) are 10-20MB for these compilation units.

My questions (not directed towards these specific libraries)

  1. Is this normal behavior for code that heavily uses templates?
  2. Is there something that can be done to reduce the memory demands and
    compile time?
  3. If there is no good solution to the problem, why isn’t this
    addressed by the people that design the programming language? The
    more people understand C++, the more they are likely to use templates, and generate hard-to compile code, and bloated binaries.
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    If there is no good solution to the problem, why isn’t this addressed
    by the people that design the programming language?

    Because there is no good solution, full stop.

    The problem you are talking about has nothing to do with C++. It’s an artefact from C- the old “translation unit”. Fixing this problem would require re-doing the compilation model. The C++ Committee has been trying for years to make this happen without breaking every single line of existing C++ out there (which is a bigger consideration), but it’s not a trivial problem. Fixing it would require vast changes.

    Also, Clang has way better performance, and newer versions of GCC which are variadic-template-equipped can do as well.

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