Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website for Email) wrote:
Let's not forget that this basis is just a conjecture.
The opposite statement, that user expects operator, to do sequencing and
will
expect the same from overloaded one, is conjecture as well.
That is very very true indeed.
In fact, there's a general problem with all coding guidelines. One person was burned (or believes it's easy to get burned) by a something, so he finds that something dangerous. Other person was not burned, so he thinks otherwise. And if no real evidence exists, arguments can become too abstract. It would be great to have some site, where folks could list designs or low-level idioms which lead to bugs. That would gather needed evidence. I used to have such list for myself, so, for example, I'll never write for(size_t i = ..., i >= 0; --i) any more ;-) Of course, creating such global list is very hard.
I think it's a bit hard to draw any definitive conclusion that overloading operator, is evil unless users of assignment library will start
complaining
here, and I don't thin I have more to add.
Great. No need to get irritated; in some sense, we're all in the same boat.
:o)
True. I don't think I was irritated at all -- just run out of arguments. This was sure a good discussion! - Volodya