NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/comp/sys/mac/oop/macapp3/603

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-25 | 1.7 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!ames!olivea!apple!applelink.apple.com
From: [e-mail] (Personal Software, Alan Dail,PRT)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.oop.macapp3
Subject: Re2: C++ (was re: bedrock defe
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 25 Jan 93 15:22:00 GMT
Sender: [e-mail]
Organization: AppleLink Gateway
Lines: 28

>MPW C++ will warn you if you use a "=" inside an if.
I was unaware of this warning.  Is this a warning that is defined by C++
(meaning all valid C++ compilers will generate it), or something that is added
to the MPW compiler (or CFront) to alert you of a condition that is valid in
C++, but may cause trouble.  If this is part of the language, then it is a
little better than I thought.

>The biggest problem I had switching from C to C++ was that I didn't pay enough
>attention to the warnings that CFront emits.  My C code was so "warning-laden"
>that I tended to just ignore them, but CFront can be quite helpful.  It could
>be better, though, I admit.

The C++ wanrning system has at least 2 problems:
    So many meaningless warnings are generated, it is easy to be lulled into
ignoring them all together (until something goes wrong).
    Some of the conditions that are warning should really be errors.  For
example, the warning "temporary used for non-const xxxxx & argument".  This
tells you that your method is being called, but the results are being
discarded.   I can't imagine why this would be allowed.

I still feel that C++ is more complex than it needs to be.  (Perhaps this is
due to it's roots in C.)  I believe that as our hardware gets more powerful,
our tools should be getting more elegant, not more complex.  Compare SmallTalk
to C++.

Alan