RE: [boost] Safety over efficiency guideline

From: Borgerding, Mark A. (MarkAB_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-06-09 12:06:09

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Beman Dawes [mailto:beman_at_[hidden]]
> Sent: Friday, June 09, 2000 10:48 AM
> To: boost_at_[hidden]
> Subject: [boost] Safety over efficiency guideline
> 
> 
> At 03:42 PM 6/9/00 +0200, Branko wrote:
> 
> >Right. IMHO this could be another general Boost guideline: Always
> choose
> >safety over efficiency. When providing both, make the safer
> implementation
> >the default.
> 
> Interesting suggestion!
> 
> But I don't think it is quite that simple.  There are a fair number
> of cases (portions of the STL for example) where efficiency wins.

I concur.  I don't care much for coding standards that start out "always" or
"never".  
I prefer the ones that begin "favor" or "avoid", providing they give
supporting rationale.
Generally, there are exceptions to almost any rule.  (Except for 'goto'. No
one's ever convinced me of a reason for that in C++, except in legacy code.
)

Mark