Re: [Boost-users] Library Interface Design

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-09-16 01:44:26

I much prefer to know that all objects are always valid.  Otherwise I have 
to constantly keep in my mind the state of the objects as I read through the 
program.  A small piece of code is not "transparently correct" as it depends 
on a "hidden" internal state. This means I have to rely more on program 
testing and will have more hard to find bugs.  As the program gets large, 
(and they're always getting larger!) the problem just gets worse.  In order 
for me to be confident that a given program is correct (or has few bugs) is 
for it to be composed of individually verifiably correct modules.  So 
minimizing the number of internal states helps correctness.

Of course I realize that this is not always possible to eliminate "two phase 
construction"  - in C++ often due the problems of handling exceptions in 
constructors but I still I prefer to minimise this.

"Exploratory Progamming" - I haven't heard of this but I can imagine what it 
might mean.  It doesn't sound good to me.  Though I must confess I have 
fallen into the habit of testing ideas - but, in my case,  this usually 
means relying on compile time syntax checking to help figure out how to use 
boost libaries which often isn't easy from the documentation.

Robert Ramey

Scott Meyers wrote:
...
> So, library users, what do you prefer, and why?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Scott