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From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-01-03 09:24:52


Howard Hinnant <hinnant_at_[hidden]> writes:

> On Jan 2, 2004, at 7:48 PM, Jeremy Maitin-Shepard wrote:
>
>>> Why is that better? It seems overconstrained to me.
>>
>> I have a hard time seeing what a user would do with the remaining
>> elements other than erase them.
>
> Perhaps a hash container contains expensive-to-compute elements. And
> if the hash function throws and some of the elements are then lost,
> the program may decide to catch the exception, correct the problem,
> and then rebuild the lost elements. It could examine the container
> and discover what needs to be recomputed. Why force it to start over
> from an empty container?

Actually, this scenario is fairly realistic. The container might be
acting as a cache, and the loss of some, but not all, of the elements
might be harmless.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com

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