Hmm - about manifest/enum

[Bill Baxter]

Janice Caron wrote:
> On 1/1/08, Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup at billbaxter.com> wrote:
>> Janice Caron wrote:
>>> It is. I know that's not immediately obvious, but if you follow
>>> through all the arguments (which I don't want to repeat coz they're
>>> long and complicated) you eventually have to conclude it can't be
>>> done.
>> It would be great if someone who understands it could write down the
>> rationale that lead to the current system.  I'm not very convinced by
>> "trust me I thought of everything".  Even when it's myself who thinks he
>> thought of everything, I don't really believe it till I write it all
>> down and see that the reasoning still stands up.
> 
> Quite right. I absolutely agree completely. No one should ever be
> convinced by "trust me I thought of everything".
> 
> The rationale that leads to the current system is in this forum
> though. It's /a lot/ of reading. It essentially consists of all of the
> arguments and counterarguments about const that have gone on in the
> past several months.
> 
> For this /particular/ piece of the argument, the next stage of
> reasoning would likely go like this:
> 
> A: It is an unacceptable omission that there is no way to specify
> mutable reference to const class data
> B: Then let us proceed by reductio ad absurdum. Please unambiguously
> specify exactly what you want, and then I will show that it leads to a
> contradiction.
> 
> A is then either unable to unambiguously specify exactly what they
> want, or the argument proceeds to the next stage. But eventually, it
> will hit a brick wall.

What was the fundamental problem with creating some syntax that would 
let you peel the reference part off a class reference?

Anyway I like the concept of the new const regime being lean and mean 
and covering the common cases with no exceptions to the rules.  If that 
works out then great.  But even if experience eventually reveals that 
some exceptions are actually needed, it's much better to be starting 
from something clean.

--bb