Eric Gindrup <gindrup@okway.okstate.edu> wrote in article
<33580B4D.3FA2@okway.okstate.edu>...
> Does anyone recall or have a reference as to why the inline keyword
> is used "backwards"?  It would appear to be more useful at
> function invocation than at function definition.

Just a guess.  Somebody thought
  a = b + c;
was more readable than
  a inline= b inline+ c;

Also IMHO it is nice to be able to change implementation details (is
operator+() actually defined in the header, or just declared?) without
having to change the source of clients.
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Bill Wade wrote:
>
> Eric Gindrup <gindrup@okway.okstate.edu> wrote in article
> <33580B4D.3FA2@okway.okstate.edu>...
> > Does anyone recall or have a reference as to why the inline keyword
> > is used "backwards"?  It would appear to be more useful at
> > function invocation than at function definition.
>
> Just a guess.  Somebody thought
>   a = b + c;
> was more readable than
>   a inline= b inline+ c;
>
> Also IMHO it is nice to be able to change implementation details (is
> operator+() actually defined in the header, or just declared?) without
> having to change the source of clients.

How about: the starting point was looking for a way of replacing parameterized
#defines by something better.

I haven't thought about it in depth but I can imagine that there are some
tricky issues about making decisions about inlining at the point of call
(especially if you don't have a very clever linker).

-- jP --
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