JasonB (no@spam.com) on 3/10/08 wrote:
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>Gabriele Svelto (gabriele.svelto@gmail.com) on 3/10/08 wrote:
>---------------------------
>>What I find funny about C++ is that while people claim that it is a multi paradigm
>>language there seems to be "one true way" of writing C++ code and using only part
>>of its feature set (C-with-classes for example) is frowned upon.
>
>I've never come across that. I've seen people who resist some of the funkier
>stuff because they find it too complicated to think about, but there's nothing wrong
>with that, and not knowing e.g. how to implement the libraries in Boost certainly
>doesn't prevent you from using them effectively.
>
>It would be a shame for C programmers to not want to use C++ as a drop-in substitute,
>adding little bits of C++ here and there as they grew comfortable with them, because
>someone thought they should follow the "one true way" you describe or not use it
>at all. Even without the OO stuff, templates can be a handy addition to C programs
>that can result in faster code even without heroic optimisations (e.g. C++ sort()
>vs. C qsort()).

Agreed.

>Operator overloading, function overloading, etc., are also nice
>-- I often wish OpenGL had a simple C-with-C++-function-overloading interface so
>all the function names didn't have to encode type information in them.

Violently disagreed. Static polymorphisms is evil. More here: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.std.c++/browse_frm/thread/52128201a14517df/7eca715a6200b04d#7eca715a6200b04d
I was handed a good beating :(

>The containers, too, can be handy.

Agreed.

>None of that requires the use of OO to be of benefit, and most of it doesn't create unexpected code.

Wishful thinking.