Re: [boost] Report from Mont Tremblant C++ Committee meeting

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-10-13 10:48:40

Thomas Witt <witt_at_[hidden]> writes:

> David Abrahams wrote:
>> 
>> Wow, that's a little scary.  Was that someone who's generally on the
>> ball, or one of those very few who sometimes vociferously object to
>> what's being proposed on the grounds that it doesn't do the very thing
>> it actually does?
>
> I don't like the direction this is going in. Let's just say that my 
> presentation of optional was not detailed enough for people not familiar 
> with the concept. Mea culpa.

This isn't about whose fault it was.  I'm not gonna play the blame
game ;-)

In evaluating the alleged dangers of the pointer syntax, it's
important to understand why someone may have thought optional was
supposed to be like shared_ptr.  Was it just that the person doesn't
pay attention?  As it turns out, that person emailed me privately and
the problem was nothing like that at all.  Apparently he was concerned
about something else and just expressed himself badly, so I'm back to
not being so very scared about optional having dereference syntax.

I'm just wondering, for those listening, whether the deep-copying
smart pointers often used for the pimpl idiom raise the same concerns.

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