From 3731699988551253717 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f78e5,7b33df5790e7ad92 X-Google-Attributes: gidf78e5,public From: hinnant@_anti-spam_lightlink.com (Howard Hinnant) Subject: Re: complex design flaw (#1) Date: 1999/03/16 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 455508957 Approved: Fergus Henderson References: <01be6cf4$9f3dcc80$7d9cd4c7@danielp.interlog.com> <36EC0E2F.C317A434@wizard.net> X-Original-Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 19:45:45 -0500 X-Complaints-To: news@news.unimelb.edu.au X-Trace: izvestia.its.unimelb.edu.au 921560839 4924 128.250.29.16 (16 Mar 1999 05:07:19 GMT) Organization: Lightlink Internet X-Auth: PGPMoose V1.1 PGP comp.std.c++ iQBFAgUANu3m8+EDnX0m9pzZAQGRVgF/XHtZysl0MHlL40ojLp0ZB9VnguVR5W3i /Kvb6PqcoXi5ouvyGDzzVhuhIQ2R/OuO =Rq5z NNTP-Posting-Date: 16 Mar 1999 05:07:19 GMT Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ In article , Gabriel Dos_Reis wrote: > Fair enough. But, if C++ were to be designed from scratch, I for one, > would advocate for zero-initilisation of objects of fundamental types > when declared without initializers. Well, I guess it's time to add my $0.02: I hardily disagree with zero-initialization of fundamental types. It goes against the grain of C/C++. If I want zero-initialized stuff, there is an easy way to get it with the current design. But if we turned on the automatic transmission, it would not be convenient to get non-zero-initialized stuff when we needed that performance edge. And since I've dragged myself into this one. I must agree with the original poster: complex default constructor should leave stuff uninitialized: template class complex { public: complex() {} complex(const T& re, const T& im = T()) : re_(re), im_(im) {} .... }; If you want zero-initialized stuff, then it is easy enough to say complex(0), or vector >(100, complex(0)). I don't see this as a major desgin flaw, just irritating. I can always build automatic transmissions out of well designed, efficient, fundamental building blocks. But it is much more difficult to extract performance from a pre-packaged notion of someone else's "convenience package". Along the same train of thought, I'd of much preferred double() to mean uninitialized than double(0). That way I could easily choose the right model for my vector. But that's water under the bridge now... -Howard --- [ comp.std.c++ is moderated. To submit articles, try just posting with ] [ your news-reader. If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@ncar.ucar.edu ] [ --- Please see the FAQ before posting. --- ] [ FAQ: http://reality.sgi.com/austern_mti/std-c++/faq.html ]