Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!brunix!sdm
From: sdm@cs.brown.edu (Scott Meyers)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: 'soft' or calculated class members
Message-ID: <78550@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 15 Jun 91 02:37:44 GMT
References: <1875@culhua.prg.ox.ac.uk> <2885931374@ARTEMIS.cam.nist.gov>
Sender: news@brunix.UUCP
Reply-To: sdm@cs.brown.edu (Scott Meyers)
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Lines: 23

Regarding whether to allow data member notation for function members:

In article <2885931374@ARTEMIS.cam.nist.gov> miller@FS1.cam.nist.gov (Bruce R. Miller) writes:
| Why not just make all of them get parenthesis! (whoops, lisp showing
| through again!...)

This is actually less whimsical that you suggest.  I always encourage
people to make *all* their public members functions, because then for users
of the public interface, things are much simpler -- no need to guess
whether to use data member syntax (no parens) or function member syntax.
Most everyone overlooks the fact that a class's public interface is a kind
of user interface:  the users are application developers.  They gain from
conceptual consistency, too.

Of course, there are times when data members in the public interface make
perfect sense, but substantially less frequently than most people seem to
believe.

Scott


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