> On Dec 4, 2014, at 11:28 AM, Robert O'Callahan <[email protected]> wrote: > > I think this would be a slight improvement but the place where I really want > out-parameters to be visible is at the caller, not the callee.
Agreed! The simplest way to achieve that in C++, though, is to use pointer arguments (so the ‘&' operator will generally get used at the callsite). The problem is that since pointers are overloaded and have several other uses besides out-params, the intention isn’t clear at the method definition. (And for longer methods, it can even be unclear in the implementation code.) The ‘o’ prefix nicely complements the practice of using ‘&’ at the callsite, so we get clarity at the caller and the callee. > I think that the cost of introducing this convention and dealing with the > inconsistency of it being incompletely applied across the codebase for the > foreseeable future probably outweighs the benefits. Well, converting all existing code to use this convention overnight definitely wouldn’t be worth it. And just adding this to the style guide will give us very little benefit *right now*. But I think if we add this to the coding style guide and convert things gradually in a pragmatic fashion - when we write new code, when we touch old code that doesn’t use the convention, and perhaps when we encounter an unclear method definition in the course of our work - a year or two down the road it may be common enough that we get significant benefits from the change. - Seth _______________________________________________ dev-platform mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
