Re: [boost] dynamic_bitset request

From: Damien Fisher (damien_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-07-28 08:14:25

On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Andrew J Bromage wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 27, 2002 at 01:15:55PM -0400, David Abrahams wrote:
> 
> > How about operator-() for set difference? That seems like an obvious
> > need...
> 
> I think operator~() might be a better metaphor.

That's easy (I hope :) ).  operator~ is unary, is it not?  It is set
difference with respect to a "universal" set.  However, sometimes it may
be useful to take difference with respect to some other set:

Eg: (1, 0, 1) - (0, 1, 1) = (1, 0, 0) (abusing notation in a hopefully
obvious fashion)

> (Why is it that most of the arguments about anything seem to boil down
> to what it should be called?)

It reminds me of that famous saying which I can't remember exactly, so
I'll paraphrase (badly)...if you get 20 people together to talk about
something, they'll sit there talking about the hard bit for 5 minutes
and then debate the easy bit for hours, because the issues are familiar
to them, and it's easier to debate than to think :).