Re: containers tentative design summary

[Gerard Jungman <jungman@lanl.gov>]

On Thu, 2009-10-29 at 16:51 +0000, Brian Gough wrote:
> At Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:09:09 -0600,
> >   /* claims not to twiddle v.data[] */
> >   gsl_some_typical_const_function((const gsl_const_vector *) &v);
> > 
> 
> The problem with anything involving explicit casts is that we lose
> type-safety.  If v is not a vector there's no way to detect the error,
> which closes the hole of const-related errors but opens another one.

General statement: C is a weakly-typed language.

Consequence: We cannot prevent people from loading the gun,
pointing it at their heads, and pulling the trigger. They
are always free to do this. In fact, it is a tenet of C
that you should trust people to do what they need to do.

You will never succeed in making an interface "safe" in
this sense. However, you _can_ make an interface intuitive
and safe to use in a normal manner. I don't think you
can ask any more of C.


Tangential but powerful argument: I talked to Tanmoy about it.
He considers this normal and useful. The benefits outweigh the
defects. "Just do it and stop worrying about it" is an exact quote.

Everybody who understands C, including the standards committee,
knows that const-ness is screwed up, because of the way it was
tacked on to the old language. This is one of a small number of
recognized ways to get around the defects in the language.

--
G. Jungman