On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 11:32 PM, Maciej Stachowiak <m...@apple.com> wrote:
> A linked list node or tree node could useful have const methods, which give > only const pointers/references to other nodes. If there is a reason const > references to DOM nodes or renew objects are not useful, it is not due to > the object graph participation itself, in my opinion. > Indeed. The rule of thumb I use is that a const member function should only return const-ref or pointer-to-const objects (whether as return values or outparams). This helps ensure that the method is logically const, not just physically const, by preventing callers from using const methods to gain handles they can use to modify supposedly-const objects. It so happens that objects in trees/graphs tend to have functions that return pointers to other objects much more frequently than do independent data holders. Thus Geoff's rule ends up approximating my rule, but is not equivalent. As to use of const in general, I would prefer to see more of it rather than less, _assuming it is used only for logical constness_. See Scott Meyers' "Effective C++", item 3, for rationale. PK
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