On 25.05.2012 17:04, Alex Rønne Petersen wrote:
So I was writing a container class and in some test code, I called
container.clear(). Reasonable enough, right? Hell, it even compiled!
Turns out, my program completely broke at runtime. Apparently, I'd
forgotten to implement clear() on my container class, and
*object.clear() was being called instead*.
I don't blame UFCS for this. It just happened to be the reason this
compiled at all. But, what I do think is: clear is the *ABSOLUTELY MOST
HORRIBLE NAME EVER* for a function that actually finalizes and zeroes an
object. Did it not seem obvious to call it, I don't know, *finalize*?
And even ignoring the naming, having a symbol called clear in the
'global' namespace is absolute insanity.
Am I the only person with this opinion?
No, there are thousands like you. Let's call clear "nuke", breaking TDPL
and saving the day. :)
P.S. Obviously first clear goes through normal deprecation cycle.
--
Dmitry Olshansky
