Joel de Guzman wrote:
Fernando Cacciola wrote:
It could help if you voiced your opinion on the problems posed by your model (that is, that the effect of assignment would depend on the lvalue being absent or not). The only thing I heard from you on this point since I raised it for the first time years ago was "it doesn't look good, right". If this problem had not existed we wouldn't be having this discussion. The only way out I see is to figure out how to weight the problems and cons of each model. Simply restating the cons of one of them isn't enough.
Well, first of all, let me apologize for my tone and giving up too easily.
np
FWIW, if I recall correctly what I said was more than "it doesn't look good", but I don't recall now.
I'm pretty sure just simply acknowldeged the problem but didn't propose an alternative solution. I need to do it again but, in the past, I went over all of the related discussions twice.
As far as I'm concerned, I always thought that what I was against was (and is) for special handling and special cases.
I'm against special cases too. But when the special handling is, or appears to be, necessary, getting rid of it is quite difficult.
I've always stated that the tuple<T&> behavior should be the model (actually, to be more basic: struct { T& x; } ).
I know, and I always counter-stated that it shouldn't. Tuples can't be emptied. optional<> can; and in fact, nullability is it fundamental characteristic. We can't model optional<> after something that doesn't do the very fundamental thing optional<> does.
The nullability aspect is *besides* the point and has nothing at all to do with the rebinding semantics.
This is 100% false. Is 100% the opposite. Rebinding semantics are there _precisely_ and _only_ to solve a problem posed by nullability. Let me say that again: Rebinding semantics are there _precisely_ and _only_ to solve a problem posed by nullability. So once again, I ask you to deeply consider nullability and the problem it poses on assignment (I hope I don't have to repeat it again), then weight my proposed solution (rebinding) with your expectactions. If possible, propose a better solution or at least show that you don't think the problem is worth a controversial solution like rebinding. Best -- Fernando Cacciola SciSoft http://fcacciola.50webs.com/