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For a beginner its just good to be aware that there these cross platform libraries to do more advanced and OS specific things you wish do as you learn more. You don't necessarily need to invest time learning the POSIX, Win32 or Carbon APIs if you want to make more advanced programs. Since windows is a major platform many if not all of cross platform libraries will let you develop with them in Visual C++.
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I agree completely with the library evaluation issue and I can have a little to much of that zealousness, but I will blame that on youthful arrogance (which I can I have too much of).
To me experimental = alpha software that is fragile and not for use in anything beyond toy projects. I was under the impression that the Boost review process doesn't not allow alpha quality libraries in.
Almost all free software licenses (and quite a few proprietary ones) do not offer a warranty or guarantee that the software will do anything or be fit for any purpose. Boost's faq just goes out of its way to state that because they are associated with the C++ standards community and people might think otherwise. In then end if you need some level of assurance I suspect the people at Boost Consulting will be happy to handle any issues you run into.
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