Re: [boost] [outcome] High level summary of review feedback accepted so far

Subject: Re: [boost] [outcome] High level summary of review feedback accepted so far
From: Niall Douglas (s_sourceforge_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-05-30 13:51:41

On 30/05/2017 13:25, Peter Dimov via Boost wrote:
> Niall Douglas wrote:
> 
>> > value() id wide operator*() is narrow.
>>
>> Why? Just because optional made that mistake?
> 
> The motivation here is that in
> 
> if( o )
> {
>    o->this_();
>    o->that();
>    o->this_other_thing();
>    o->that_too();
> 
>    o->almost_forgot();
> }
> 
> there is needless replication of the check. This, as I already
> mentioned, stems from a desire to operate on the value inside 'o'
> directly, which is not my preferred style in result's case, where I'd
> prefer to extract it instead.

Oh I get that was the motivation, and that's exactly where I find the
most objection with Optional: it has some pointer semantics, but it is
not a pointer, and so shouldn't be pretending to be one. It not being a
pointer should have always been made clear to end users (by forcing them
type more boilerplate) to extract immediately or else bind a lvalue ref
to the internally stored value. Don't treat not-a-pointer as a pointer.

I also, weirdly enough given the discussion till now, really dislike the
wide contracts anywhere on Optional. Unlike Expected or Outcome, the
compiler can instantly tell if you're being stupid when using Optional.
So I'd have chosen all narrow observers personally, and have the
compiler error with obvious UB usage and warn if you observe an Optional
returned by an extern function without checking its state first. But
that ship has sailed sadly.

> There is a middle ground here, which I was pondering for a while, make
> has_value return T* instead of bool.

It's a clever idea, but it reminds me too much of C++ 98 days of
returning void * and such to implement boolean testing. We all got badly
bitten with those tricks, for example if(std::cout) is not a compile
error. *Shudder*.

Niall

-- 
ned Productions Limited Consulting
http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/