hi boosters while solving my own design problems i accidentally discovered an interesting technique let's assume we want to associate some value (a type) to a newly created type so we can easily access the associated type during metaprogramming let's call the associated type a property then we have the following property types: struct property0 {}; struct property1 {}; struct property2 {}; now we want to access the associated property for an arbitrary type in a natural traits manner: property<arbitrary_type>::type it appears we can implement it almost trivially (if know how) (let's assume we have portable typeof() facility) consider the code //the return type of this function appears to be the default property template<typename type> property0 get_prop(type*); //do not implement! template<typename t> struct property { typedef typeof(get_prop((type*)42) type; }; template<typename type, typename p = typename property<type>::type> struct base { friend p get_prop(type*) { return p(); } }; template<typename type> void foo(const base<type>&) //handles ALL types derived from base { typedef typename property<type>::type associated_property; } template<typename type> void bar(const base<type, property2>&) //handles ONLY types with property2 {} struct s : public expression<s> //default property used here {}; struct s1 : public expression<s1, property1> {}; struct s2 : public expression<s2, property2> {}; int main() { foo(s()); foo(s1()); foo(s2()); //bar(s()); //should not compile //bar(s1()); //should not compile bar(s2()); return 0; } even with the lack of typeof(), given a fixed set of properties it is very easy to implement this technique see working example at http://codepad.org/qXkESprl personally i see it as extremely useful for generic lib writers for some designes (of course if appropriately applied) as well as for users of such libs i would appreciate any thoughts on improvement of this technique within C++98 standard also any thoughts on portability are welcome if you have questions about how and/or why does it work feel free to ask -- Pavel