Re:Linus vs C++, again
by kenjackson on Thursday June 10, 2010 @05:44PM
(#1421845)
But in a well-written program the use of overrides would make sense. Just as much as this function:
ExitProgram();
should be clear in the context of a program. Now it's possible that this function actually creates a new process that then plays tic-tac-toe. But in a decent program, it will do its best to be consistent with what you expect. Likewise, if I see A * B, I expect that we're multiplying A and B. What does multiplication mean? Depends on the application, but I expect it to make sense.
And with a decent IDE you should easily be able to get the def for the '*', just like you'd get the def for any other function.
The problem isn't in the C++ language, but rather the C expectation that many developers have.
On the other hand, it can mean a variety of things in C++. Are we multiplying numbers? Is foo or bar an instance of a class that has the * operator overridden? Is there a global overload of the * operator? Are we declaring a pointer?