Re: Boost scoped_ptr design question

From:

"Balog Pal" <pasa@lib.hu>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.c++

Date:

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 21:28:23 +0100

Message-ID:

<iedsno$1ma3$1@news.ett.com.ua>

"Leigh Johnston" <leigh@i42.co.uk>

Braindead stuff I use and damn on regular basis: string, map.

What's wrong with std::vector and std::map? I'm sure most C++
programmers use them on a daily basis without complaint.

vector is about the only thing in std I'd say is okay as is. (certainly
we all had everything it offers well before the standard even was
considered.)

map has a broken interface:
- operator[] has no const variant

What would a const operator[] do if the element doesn't exist? Throw an
exception? Not very user friendly.

I could live with UB. mandated throwing any of the std:: exceptions too.
When I use that, I know from design the element IS there. And I absolutely
do not want it created as a side effect of retrieval.

And a late comment to some design history, std::vector had NO specification
to hold continuous storage, and thus be compatible with old-style arrays
despite that being the intent. Thge fix was issued through defect report
(making into the standard 5 years later).

std::string was supposedly designed to be internally ref-counted in the
implementation. It was too until it turned out as broken due to some public
interface functions, and was forced to be deepcopying or lose
thread-safety.