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- From: bs@alice.att.com (Bjarne Stroustrup)
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
- Subject: Re: Language extensions for run-time type identification
- Message-ID: <23263@alice.att.com>
- Date: 21 Jul 92 17:25:52 GMT
- References: <EY048MK@netmbx.netmbx.de> <TMB.92Jul20182052@arolla.idiap.ch>
- Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ
- Lines: 21
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- tmb@arolla.idiap.ch (Thomas M. Breuel @ IDIAP (Institut Dalle Molle d'Intelligence Artificielle
- Perceptive)) writes
-
- > As I understand it (I haven't read the proposal), there will
- > apparently be a half-hearted attempt at adding runtime type tags to
- > some user-defined classes. From the descriptions of the proposal that
- > I have heard, that will not be sufficient to make the C++ language
- > safe (in the sense of eliminating most sources of "undefined
- > behavior"). In fact, at best, it will encourage a careless programming
- > style that relies on runtime type tests rather than inheritance and
- > virtual functions.
-
- I have no doubts that whatever mechanism for run-time type identification
- added to C++ (if any) will fail to please everybody. In fact, that is unavoidable
- since the the desires of various people in this area are quite contradictory.
- However, it might be an idea for people to refrain from condemning a proposal
- until they have seen it. Also, the mechanism will probably change based on
- discussion and constructive critism.
-