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From: rfg@NCD.COM (Ron Guilmette)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Overloaded operator dot?
Message-ID: <4610@lupine.NCD.COM>
Date: 25 Mar 91 01:13:02 GMT
References: <11152@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> <624@taumet.com> <12193@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: Network Computing Devices, Inc., Mt. View, CA
Lines: 34

In article <12193@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> jbuck@galileo.berkeley.edu (Joe Buck) writes:
>
>|> Q3. What functionality will be added to the language which is not now
>|>     conveniently available?  (What problem does this solve?)
>
>The new functionality is the ability to have "smart references".  The
>semantics parallels the semantics for "smart pointers" obtained by overloading
>operator -> and should have the same restrictions.

[... stuff deleted ... ]

>Smart references will make it easier to write garbage collectors (though
>the C-compatible array semantics can leave holes in the scheme).

Horse pucky!  Prove it!

I claim that even if you *had* your so-called "smart references" today,
there is absolutely nothing that you could do with them that you could
not do just as well using only "smart pointers".

I also claim that there is nothing that you could do significantly *easier*
with "smart references" than you could with just smart pointers.

If you have a counterexample I encourage you to post it and prove me wrong.
(Post the code please.  Hemming and hawing in flowery prose will not help
to make the point either way.)



-- 

// Ron ("Shoot From The Hip") Guilmette
// Internet: rfg@ncd.com      uucp: ...uunet!lupine!rfg
// New motto:  If it ain't broke, try using a bigger hammer.