Operator overloading, structs

[Yigal Chripun]

Derek Parnell wrote:
> On Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:06:45 +0300, Yigal Chripun wrote:
> 
>> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> Yigal Chripun wrote:
>>>> your abstraction inversion example doesn't apply here. The problem I 
>>>> see is the narrowing implicit cast, i.e. int values behave like 
>>>> booleans. I have no problem with the reverse which is what your 
>>>> example is about.
>>> An int does not convert to bool implicitly. An int can be tested with 
>>> "if", which is a different thing.
>>>
>>> Andrei
>> that is an implicit cast.
>> what I'm saying is that:
>>
>>   int a = .. ;
>>   if (a) { .. }
>>
>> this should be a compiler error IMO.
> 
> I'm not agreeing with you, Yigal.
> 
> I think that the idiom you described is not equivalent to 
> 
>    if (a == TRUE) { .. }
> 
> but really 
> 
>    if (a != 0) { .. }
> 
> when 'a' is an integer of any size or sign. 
> 
> This should *not* be a compiler error as it is a convenient shorthand for
> some coders. Personally, I try not to code this idiom because I find it
> misleading in terms of self documentation ... but then I'm against using
> goto as well ;-)
> 
> 

I don't see how we disagree since you say yourself that you try to avoid 
this idiom and find it misleading in terms of documentation. which I 
agree with.
yes, it does save a few key strokes but as I said before, that's a 
really bad optimization since code is read much more often than it's 
written and readability is much more important than saving a few key 
strokes.

I also agree about goto. there are very rare cases where it is useful 
but outside those goto is a bad bad thing to use.