TDPL: Manual invocation of destructor

[Michel Fortin]

On 2010-08-10 10:19:25 -0400, "Steven Schveighoffer" 
<schveiguy at yahoo.com> said:

> On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:11:21 -0400, Michel Fortin  
> <michel.fortin at michelf.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 2010-08-10 08:11:21 -0400, "Steven Schveighoffer"  
>> <schveiguy at yahoo.com> said:
>> 
>>> Undefined, undefined, undefined :)
>> 
>> So we agree on that. That's exactly what I was trying to prove to  
>> Andrei. Using clear() can break program invariants, break the type  
>> system (immutable members) and so on, even though I admit it can be  
>> useful at times.
>> 
>> **** So why give it a so innocuous-looking name such as "clear" !! ****
> 
> I think that book has shipped.

That's not really an answer to the question. The answer I expected was 
more that it seemed innocuous at the time, even though now it appears 
more harmful. To me it's the C++ copy constructor all over again...

Can we really not fix it before every one start using it? In other 
words, which is worse: having something in the book deprecated just a 
few months after publication? or having hundreds of programers using 
clear() thinking it is innocuous?

At the very least I'd like to have a way to disable it for certain 
classes (by throwing an exception when you try).

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin at michelf.com
http://michelf.com/