"Rob Stewart" <stewart@sig.com> wrote in message news:200504281321.j3SDLhm01683@vanzandt.balstatdev.susq.com... | From: "Thorsten Ottosen" <nesotto@cs.auc.dk> | > "Bob Bell" <belvis@pacbell.net> wrote in message | > | The absence of copying in scoped_ptr is not about enforcing or even | > | encouraging a programming paradigm. Scoped_ptr denies copying because of | > | what scoped _ptr _is_: a non-copyable type. | > | > but we could have made it copyable just like you're trying to say we can make | > pointer containers copyable. | | Are you seriously making that point? scoped_ptr wouldn't be | scoped_ptr if it copied. A pointer container remains every bit a | pointer container if it provides the usual spellings for copying | and assignment. apparently we disagree. | > at the bottom line, C++ copies too much and sometimes its just a benefit to be | > made aware | > of that fact | | Why should one library assume the pedagogical role of teaching | C++ programmers that C++ copies too much? If you're that | concerned that people will copy pointer containers more than they | realize, with resulting performance problems, and perhaps lead to | abandoning the library, just add a manifest constant controlled | diagnostic when copies occur. not sure what you by diagnostic. | > | The same argument cannot be made for ptr_container, for two reasons. First, | > | ptr_container is a kind of container, | > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | > | and containers (as I understand them) | > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | > | > as you remark, pointer containers are "a kind of " containers; so they are not | > containers in the usual sense. | | Why are you picking at nits like this? Yep, it's "a kind of" | container, so one expects it to work like most every other | container one encounters. its the nits that makes all the difference in our viewpoints. to me, this whole thread is a nit. | > in 10 lines of code you can have a copyable ptr_vector if you want, I don't | > see why you can't | > just do that if you want that? | | Because then most users of the library will need to write that | same code. I doubt that. -Thorsten