Edward Diener wrote:
The one area where C++ is weaker than other languages for design time UI, and component, development is in its lack of a general run-time reflection mechanism. That is the only area which I see that is holding it back.
A solution I've read about that I like to solve this is a separate 'pre-processor' that can pass your current project and look for certain members/member-functions and generate code to build up the appropriate required run-time information (e.g. it could recognise the '__published:' section of Borland's VCL classes and generate the code containg the list of members in that section which would be accessible at runtime) I'm sure this could be done in a compiler independent way as it would be parsing C++ code and generating C++ code to then be compiled by your compiler of choice. I can't remember where I first read about this idea but perhaps someone else has more information. Thanks Russell