[boost] Re: Interest in smart pointer with value semantics?

From: Dan W. (danw_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-01-04 11:26:59

Daniel Wallin wrote:
> David Abrahams wrote:
>> It would only make sense in C++ to make a pointee's mutability depend
>> on the mutability of the pointer if we were going to think of the
>> pointee as being part of the pointer.  For that application, we have
>> boost::optional.  Pointers should probable remain pointer-like.  In
>> other words, they simply refer to other objects but do not contain
>> them.
> Are you saying there is no place for a deep-copy pointer with const
> propagation? boost::optional hardly solves the same problems that this
> kind of pointer would (incomplete types and polymorphic types for
> instance).

I'm a lover of deep copy, deep constness and all deep things myself, and 
I used to argue for deep_const AND a _deep_copy_assignment_operator at 
an Eiffel forum;  but I would want deep things to be explicit, rather 
than the semantics of the language we're so used to, to change.