Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Can we hide the private part of a class ?
Message-ID: <1988Oct2.045604.17456@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1358@stratus> <1988Sep29.044111.16104@utzoo.uucp> <4193@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 88 04:56:04 GMT

In article <4193@polya.Stanford.EDU> shap@polya.Stanford.EDU (Jonathan S. Shapiro) writes:
>The flip side of this is that what you say about both languages is
>wrong given a good librarian.  The librarian could maintain the
>component sizes, and at least for the client functions that would
>eliminate unneeded dependency in both languages, subject to the
>constraint that the private part be compiled first.

Um, no, it doesn't eliminate the dependencies, it just hides them.  If
you change the size of something, everything that knows about it still
has to be recompiled.  It's essentially the equivalent of synthesizing
the *real* header file from a fake one (with no private information)
and the private part.

Remember, too, that sizes are the easy part -- things like inline functions
are both more significant and harder to do.
-- 
The meek can have the Earth;    |    Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
the rest of us have other plans.|uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu