Re: [boost] Loki SmartPtr questions

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-01-14 13:25:42

At 10:19 AM 1/14/2002, Iain.Hanson_at_[hidden] wrote:

 >>The extreme case occurs when there are so many calls to legacy functions 

 >>taking raw pointers that use of shared_ptr::get() makes the code
 >>unreadable.  That's when the ability to enable implicit conversion may 
be
 >>worthwhile, even though dangerous.
 >
 >Personally, I got so badly burnt with implicit pointer conversions in the 

 >early 90's that I'd rather write wrapper functions to the legacy code 
than
 >use implicit pointer conversions - no matter how much work it was.

The wonderful thing about Andrei's policy based design is that you get to 
disallow implicit conversions (that's the default, so you don't have to do 
anything) while someone else who wants them can enable them.  Yet because 
it is done at compile time, there is no runtime cost.

And unlike the boost::xxx_ptr approach, the policy differences aren't based 
on macros.  Much easier and safer to use; no problem of inadvertently 
turning conversion on in one smart pointer because it was needed in 
another.

--Beman