Unless reviewers here are super keen on supporting outcome<T&>, I'll be adding a static assert forever preventing them soon.
But not providing them means that if I have function that returns a reference and signals failures by, say output function parameter:
``` T& find_smallest(std::array<T, 10> & array, std::error_code & err); ```
I will never be able to "modernize" it to use `outcome` or `expected`.
I know you won't like this answer, but I'd just return a T* and dereference it :) But to be more serious, the way I've solved that exact problem in my own code is: ``` expected<gsl::span<T>> find_smallest(std::array<T, 10> & array); ``` span's be amazing, they are effectively Rust's borrowed references. I use them a lot. I appreciate that is a workaround rather than a solution. But once you start using spans a lot, you **never again** return references from a function. References become only ever used for inputs, never outputs. Which is a very, very good thing and your code will be much better for it. Niall -- ned Productions Limited Consulting http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/