Re: Type System as Design Tool [Was: We do not use C++ exceptions]

From:
Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail@erdani.org>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Mon, 9 Mar 2009 05:12:27 CST
Message-ID:
<KG7MnD.pt7@beaver.cs.washington.edu>
Jeff Schwab wrote:

Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

Jeff Schwab wrote:

Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

If I had used
smart pointers and the such my data set would have been fatter and
might
have not fit in the 4GB memory space.


Have you got some evidence of that? Or are you just speculating?


I am always careful to qualify my statements. If you cut the part of the
message in which I clearly stated I haven't coded the same application
with and without GC, I can't help much.


It was not my intent to snip relevant information. I'll take this to
mean that you're just speculating.

I don't want to start a sniping
war here, but my post was ultimately a reply to the one that started
this discussion, which was indeed rife with speculation, and which I
recall was written by you.


I'm not sure what you mean. I will go so far as to say that lack of GC
does not automatically require the use of smart-pointers, and that
smart-pointers do not automatically imply run-time overhead.


That is what I meant, and it's more of a fact than a speculation, and
it's also not a negotiation so there's no need to go as far as admitting
its existence. The part where I mentioned "...data may not have fit in
memory" is a speculation, as made clear by my qualifying statement and
by the very "maybe" inside the statement.

I guess I'm a bit stiffer than usual, apologies about that :o). I was
hoping I'd add value to a discussion that was purely one of opinion by
adding a data point, so understandably I got a tad bent out of shape
that in spite of careful qualification, one sentence was made the entire
focus and... ah! so you're just speculating!

Bottom line, what I think always helps is to acquire information and
gain experience with a technology in order to comment saliently on it.
What I noticed is that most detractors of acquired-taste technologies
such as the STL or GC itself have had extremely limited exposure to
them. Contrast that with iostreams, which are equally obtuse for
insiders and outsiders.

Andrei

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