[boost] Interesting perspective on shared_ptr

From: Emil Dotchevski (emildotchevski_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-04-14 20:38:05

In a discussion with Peter Dimov, following thoughts triggered by the recent 
posts arguing that after a move, shared_ptr should clear px, it occured to 
me that perhaps shared_ptr<T> could have T px member instead of T * px. 
Peter correctly pointed out that in that case, the class template would be 
called "shared", not "shared_ptr".

Note that I would still be able to say shared<foo *> to get (almost) the 
same thing as shared_ptr<foo>. There are a few things that need 
clarification, but overall I don't see drawbacks of shared<foo *> compared 
to shared_ptr<foo>.

Peter came up with other potential uses, such as shared<int> which would be 
implicitly convertible to shared<double>. You can add things like 
shared<pthread_t>, or shared<HWND>. Speaking of HWND, I already wrote my own 
win_handle<T>, with partial specialization win_handle<T *> which has a 
shared_ptr<T> member. All that so I can write win_handle<HWND>, and it only 
works because HWND happens to be a pointer.

Just a wacky idea. :)

Emil Dotchevski