Re: [boost] Re: In-place construction for variant

From: E. Gladyshev (egladysh_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-10-30 02:53:28

--- Brian McNamara <lorgon_at_[hidden]> wrote:
[...]
> 
> I'm pretty sure that sometime a few years ago I read a research paper
> or two in software engineering that tried to offer a formal model for
> all of this (I think in the context of Java, and trying to come up with
> a unit testing methodology).  But of course I can't track down any of
> the references now.  Rats.

I tried google but of course all get is
"On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right of Citizens"
kind of stuff. :) I'll keep on looking.

> At the end of the day, in the general case I think it just comes down to
> "it's hard to build correct software, especially in the presence of
> effects".  

So the question is are basic/strong guarantees of any help
in this hard job... and if so then how?

[...]
> (If you're really concerned about this in practice, the "paranoia"
> method, while potentially overly restrictive, may help.  Just turn your
> invariant into a const method returning a bool, and then assert() it at
> the start and finish of every method in the interface.  Yuck.)

It is hard to use assert() during the s/w design stage. :)
I guess this guarantees thing is supposed to influence
how you design your software not just some run-time checks.

For example if you know that that a type X gives
basic guarantees, how would you *typically* use this 
knowledge when designing the rest of the program!?

Eugene

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