Re: [boost] Formal Review Request: TypeErasure

Subject: Re: [boost] Formal Review Request: TypeErasure
From: Dave Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-06-07 14:41:29

on Thu Jun 07 2012, "Hite, Christopher" <Christopher.Hite-AT-partner.commerzbank.com> wrote:

> Chris:
>>>> * people shouldn't use any to replace classic interfaces and virtual 
>>>> functions
> Dave Abrahams:
>>>Excuse me, but why not?  Doing polymorphism this way eliminates all
>> kinds of nastiness that we get with classic interfaces and virtual
>> functions.
> Luke:
>> Perhaps we should make sure the documentation clearly states what
>> kinds of nastiness the library allows us to avoid and how it is
>> intended to be used.  It solves a lot of problems ....
>
> So the nice thing about the any vs. classic virtual functions is it is
> nonintrusive.  

Actually, that's only one of many nice things.  See Sean Parent's 2nd
talk from C++Now!  Oh, the videos aren't posted yet.

Well, the chain of implications, off the top of my head, goes like this:

OOP => different sized objects being handled through the same interface
    => dynamic allocation   (- complicated)
    => memory management    (- hard)
and => reference semantics  (- hard to reason about)
    => shared state         (- hard to reason about)
    => MT synchronization
    => deadlocks, races, and inefficiency

In a nutshell, concept-based-runtime-polymorphism/type-erasure allows
you to have runtime polymorphism while preserving value semantics.  The
value of that win is very commonly underestimated.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com