Topic: Left hand operators revisited


Author: none@here.com (Kaba)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 05:25:58 GMT
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About a month ago we had discussion about implementing a symmetric left
hand binary operator.

The discussion can be seen at:

http://groups.google.fi/group/comp.std.c++/browse_thread/thread/e158df32
9d2cfce7

Following that, I wrote an article that essentially summarizes the issue
and its solutions:

http://kaba.hilvi.org/project/mycents/mycents3.htm

As the article reads, I credit Greg Herlihy for bringing the solution to
my knowledge. (Related, I posted a short "thank you" message to Greg in
this newsgroup, but that was apparently filtered away. So, here goes
along with this message: thank you!:)).

Now on to the beef. As I note in the discussion and in the article, I'd
like to raise a cat on the table with the following issues:
* The in-class template class-type dependent friend functions do not
have a syntax to be defined outside the class definition => This is a
style problem, cluttering interface description with implementation
details.
* The symmetric left hand operator behaviour with template classes is a
trivial need, but the solution requires deep knowledge of the language.
=> This is kind of an embarrassment. On this part C++ should clearly
make the solution more simple to make it tractable for novices.

My questions are the following:
* How do I raise the cat on the table? If the issue is not logged in
some list, it has a possibility of being forgotten, thus possibly
missing the next standard.
* Are you aware of any related work that would solve this problem?
* Can you come up with a good proposal?

--
Kalle Rutanen
http://kaba.hilvi.org

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