Dialects, C++, Overloading

[brnstnd at stealth.acf.nyu.edu]

Rob, the issue is not user-defined operator syntax. The issue is overloading.

Say a language provides a vector library with a vector addition routine.
You might write ``a = b + c'' in full as ``a = b vec.+ c''. Overloading
means abbreviating vec.+ and string.+ and matrix.+ and complex.+ as a
single operator. We're not asking you to write a = vec.plus(b,c); we're
pointing out the problems of ambiguous abbreviation.

My main concern is maintainability. I hate debugging Ada---particularly
someone else's Ada---because I have to learn an entirely new language
just to understand each program. I have to force myself to look
suspiciously at each operator and function call, asking ``what are the
types?'' and ``is it overloaded?'' If I don't read Ada so painfully, I'm
liable to overlook an overloaded operator, automatically assuming that
(for example) a = b + c has no side effects or that bar(x) + foo(y) is
the same construction that I just debugged when I saw it in the last
routine.

I often have a lot of trouble finding the definition of an overloaded
function---my searching tools are of no help when the syntax sucks and
the definition could be in any of ten libraries. But this is only a
lesser evil compared to an overloaded operator insidiously taking over
the innocent plus sign while the programmer looks away.

> If instead we make
> the much more reassuring assumption that the programmer knows about the things
> he is programming, then we have a second set of conventions to deal with:
> those of the subject at hand.

This is the root of the problem: you have to learn a new language just
to read each new program. When that new language doesn't even have the
same semantics for a = b, the reader is in big trouble. In contrast, if
overloaded functions and operators had to have a special syntax, they'd
be an easy-to-notice, natural first spot to look for bugs. The special
syntax doesn't have to be anything more than, e.g., an initial period;
but it has to be there. If the language provided a standard way to
expand all overloaded operators into unambiguous versions, life would
be wonderful.

---Dan