[boost] Re: in/out parameters, codingstylesandmaintenance

From: Gennadiy Rozental (gennadiy.rozental_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-05-02 05:20:59

> your solution will cause more confusion, AFAICT. When you see:
>
>     foo(a, b, c)
>
> Are you 100% sure, without looking at the docs or the API, that
> a, b or c is not modified? The only plausible answer is: that depends,
> if foo is retrofitted or not. *** That's the problem ***.  Anything less
> than 100% guarantee is false security.

I do not agree with your point.

Everybody know that pointer and reference parameters need to be declared
const if you are not gonna change it.
But there are some people that do not do this (see Microsoft API for
examples). Does it make const globally unusable?
>From your standpoint it looks that I should not declare *my* parameters
const just because there is somebody somewhere,
who does not do this (because somebody or me who will become used to this
technique would have fail sense of security).

Just my 2c

Gennadiy.