Re: [boost] [Review] Shmem Library

From: Johan Johansson (johanj_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-02-09 20:19:16

me22 wrote:
> On 2/9/06, Johan Johansson <johanj_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>   
>>> while a pointer means that the method will be
>>> taking ownership of that pointer.
>>>
>>>       
>> Well, it's a possibility, but again not necessarily global law I think.
>>
>>     
>
> Well, it's obviously not a "global law".
>
> But what does pass-by-pointer give over pass-by-reference?  There's
> the possibility of null, but I'd rather do optional arguments with
> overloaded functions or, for complicated ones, with Boost.Parameter. 
> The only other difference is in ownership/lifetime management ( though
> I'd rather make that more explicit with an std::auto_ptr or other
> smart pointer anyways ).  I basically don't see any other reason to
> pass by pointer except for lifetime, which is irrelevant when it's
> being used as an output parameter since there's no resource ownership
> transfer.
>   

I'm not arguing that pass-by-pointer is preferable. I'm actually arguing
the opposite. I'm just saying that just as pass-by-pointer doesn't
signal "the argument may change" I'm not convinced it signals "I'll
delete the argument". As for the smart pointer option, I actually wrote
a response to that effect but I was kind of expecting to get slapped
around with a "but I don't want to use smart pointers" and deleted it...

j