Should operator overload methods be virtual?

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:28:14 -0500, dsimcha <dsimcha at yahoo.com> wrote:

> == Quote from Steven Schveighoffer (schveiguy at yahoo.com)'s article
>> If the compiler could somehow
>> optimize out all instances of the template function to reduce bloat, I
>> think that would make it a little less annoying.
>
> What is the sudden obsession with code bloat here lately?  Check out this
> StackOverflow question that I posed a few weeks ago.  If anyone has a  
> decent
> answer to it, I'd love to hear it.

If I'm writing template code effectively as a "macro" meaning "call this  
virtual method", then there is no point in having template code whatsoever.

If I'm forced to write it because the compiler only will call a template,  
then I would like for the compiler to optimize out its "mistake".  Then I  
have no problem with it, because the net effect on the binary performance  
and size should be zero.  Even if I have to annotate the function to force  
it, that is fine with me.

Larger programs take more memory to run, and longer to load.  Not that my  
D programs need to squeeze every ounce of power out of the system, but I  
think nowadays there's too little emphasis on executable size optimization  
(or even memory consumption).

an ancecdote on bloatage:  I once had a driver for XP for my wireless USB  
network adapter that put an icon on the task tray, consuming roughly 10MB  
of memory.  Yep, to put an icon on the task tray, it needed 10MB.  Just in  
case I ever wanted to click on that icon to set up my wireless network  
(which I would never do because once it's set up, I'm done).  As a bonus,  
every week or so, some kind of memory leak would trigger, and it would  
consume about 200MB of memory before my system started thrashing and I had  
to kill the icon.  I tried to disable it and use Windows to configure my  
wireless card, and then it used 10MB to put a *grayed out icon* in the  
tray (which would continue the bonus plan).  I finally had to hunt down  
the offending executable and rename it to prevent it from starting.  And  
guess what?  the wireless adapter worked flawlessly.  It's shit like this  
that pisses me off when people say "oh, bloat is a think of the past, you  
get soo much memory and cpu now adays, you don't even notice it."  All  
those little 10MB programs add up pretty quickly.

-Steve