Howard Hinnant wrote:
On Oct 10, 2005, at 10:36 AM, Fernando Cacciola wrote:
Hi people, Not only I wasn't there at the mettings but from Thuesday night I was undergoing an emergency gall bladder surgery so I coulnd't even respond the email. But I'm back home now... still recovering but I can sit in front of the notebook :)
Wow, I surely hope you recover fast.
Thank you!
Optional : Interested? Strong yes 9, weak yes 2, weak no 3, strong no 0 Significant concerns about the interface:
Pointer interface.
It figues. FWIW, I'll stand strong on this part of the interface... though I'm not sure how much my position can affect the final TR2 form.
Two ways of doing the same thing.
Hmm, really? Did they gave examples?
I believe this refers to the pointer interface plus get().
Oh.. what is get() doing there? ;)
Depends on nullptr - is there a backup plan.
I could have proposed 'none' along Optional, in its own context, but that would duplicate much of nullptr... I didn't see the need for such duplication.
Dubious of use of references.
Does this mean they don't see that as useful or that is not well supported?
I believe there was specific concern about reference rebinding under optional<T&>. There were also several comments that went like: I use optional all the time (gives use case), but I've never needed to use it with reference types.
Hmm, well, as I'll explain in the response to Joel the "normal" semantics for references are even more troubled; but I see how this can be an endless debate.
General question: what shall I do from now on? Follow the discussions on comp.std.c++?
This is a good question, and I can only give an opinion (as opposed to an authoritative answer).
You might explore a interface here on boost which did not have the pointer interface, and which dropped reference support. Then perhaps submit a follow on paper reflecting that experience. Said paper may either modify your current proposal, or more fully support it.
Well, I can certainly code up a, say, nullable<> type to explore other interface choices; but I'm unsure how to get proper feedback. Boost.Optional has been here for a while now, yet apart from the detailed feedback of just a couple of users, all I know is that people use it; but that's it... I don't get to see how much do they like/diskike this and that of the interface/semantics. So, how could I eventually compare the pros/cons of both interfaces? ..maybe I should post a "call for public report on optional" or so... Best -- Fernando Cacciola SciSoft http://fcacciola.50webs.com/