Tuples are powerful beasts. After having developed two significant projects
(<ahref="http://spirit.sourceforge.net"target="_top">Spirit</a> and <ahref="http://boost.org/libs/spirit/phoenix/index.html"target="_top">Phoenix</a>)
that relied heavily metaprogramming, it became apparent that tuples are a powerful
means to simplify otherwise tricky tasks; especially those that require a combination
of metaprogramming and manipulation of heterogenous data types with values.
While <ahref="http://www.boost.org/libs/mpl/index.html"target="_top">MPL</a> is
an extremely powerful metaprogramming tool, <ahref="http://www.boost.org/libs/mpl/index.html"target="_top">MPL</a>
focuses on type manipulation only. Ultimately, you'll have to map these types
to real values to make them useful in the runtime world where all the real
action takes place.
</p>
<p>
As <ahref="http://spirit.sourceforge.net"target="_top">Spirit</a> and <ahref="http://boost.org/libs/spirit/phoenix/index.html"target="_top">Phoenix</a>
evolved, patterns and idioms related to tuple manipulation emerged. Soon, it
became clear that those patterns and idioms were best assembled in a tuples
Abrahams</a> outlined such a scheme in 2002. At that time, it just so happened
that <ahref="http://spirit.sourceforge.net"target="_top">Spirit</a> and <ahref="http://boost.org/libs/spirit/phoenix/index.html"target="_top">Phoenix</a>
had an adhoc collection of tuple manipulation and traversal routines. It was
an instant <spanclass="emphasis"><em>AHA!</em></span> moment.
Please direct all questions to Spirit's mailing list. You can subscribe to
the <ahref="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spirit-general"target="_top">Spirit
Mailing List</a>. The mailing list has a searchable archive. A search link
to this archive is provided in <ahref="http://spirit.sourceforge.net"target="_top">Spirit</a>'s
home page. You may also read and post messages to the mailing list through
<ahref="news://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.spirit.general"target="_top">Spirit General
NNTP news portal</a> (thanks to <ahref="http://www.gmane.org"target="_top">Gmane</a>).
The news group mirrors the mailing list. Here is a link to the archives: <ahref="http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.parsers.spirit.general"target="_top">http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.parsers.spirit.general</a>.