Few points:
- Using anything without understanding is considered harmful. But it is only the ignorant technology user (and his manager) who gets burned in the end.
- You don’t have to install boost to get the smart pointers – they are header only. And installation itself is rather straightforward, in the simplest approach just typing one or two commands.
- Many of the Boost libraries and solutions are present in TR1 or will be present in C++0x
- You will always depend on external libraries… Try to choose the one that have a bright future in terms of maintenance and support.
- Unless you want to roll-out your custom solution – which would have some advantages and disadvantages.