Power (Re: all those :-)

[Chip Salzenberg]

In article <132 at ghostwheel.UUCP> ned at ghostwheel.aca.mcc.com.UUCP (Ned Nowotny) writes:
>In article <744 at PT.CS.CMU.EDU> edw at IUS1.CS.CMU.EDU (Eddie Wyatt) writes:
>>Why not? why not have an extendable language, where the user is free to 
>>define his own infix operators?
>
>In some sense, C++ has this (mis-)feature -- operator and function overloading.
>
>Unfortunately, not all programmers seem to agree on what constitutes a good
>use of operator overloading.  I have seen code which overloaded "+" and "-"
>to add and remove, respectively, an object from a set of objects.
>
>do_something();
>A + B;
>do_something_else();
>
>That's right.  It looks like a useless expression, but its not.

And I have seen code where "read()" writes and "write()" reads.  So what?

The programmer should have defined "+=" instead of "+".  So fire the
programmer; don't hobble the other programmers by restricting their
power of expression.

>Of course, it can be argued that the misuse of a feature by a programmer is
>no excuse for blaming the feature.

I couldn't agree more.  :-|

-- 
Chip Salzenberg                 UUCP: "{codas,uunet}!ateng!chip"
A T Engineering                 My employer's opinions are a trade secret.
       "Anything that works is better than anything that doesn't."