Re: [boost] Re: Re: Formal Review: FOREACH macro

From: Iain K. Hanson (ikh_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-05-04 21:34:44

On Wed, May 04, 2005 at 09:30:19PM -0400, Arkadiy Vertleyb wrote:
> "Iain K. Hanson" <ikh_at_[hidden]> wrote
> 
> > > If Perl is better then C++ preprocessor, then it should become C++
> > > preprocessor.  But it needs to be built-in, otherwise these are apples
> > > against oranges.
> >
> > With all due respect this misses the point completely. We don't need a
> better
> > text substitution tool for C++. We need something that includes headers,
> > also pragmas, and conditional compilation, the rest IMHO is macro hackery
> > and extra lingustic.
> 
> And template metaprogramming is just template hackery, correct?

No! No! No! now we have type saftey, namespaces, overload sets, dynamic & 
static polymorphism, metafunctions, and metafunction classes rtc.etc.etc.

> 
> I am just trying to understand whether your antipathy is limited to macros,
> or spreads to everything that was not in the original design, and discovered
> later?

It's limited to macros. The elegance and in some senses simplicity of static
meta programming has a beauty similar to a mathematical proof.

The power of C++ is that its original author did not envison all that 
others might do, but allowed permissively that which need not be denied.

/ikh