Re: C++ Envy

[bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff)]

In article <3g0evo$1h2@borage.csv.warwick.ac.uk>,
Jules <csusb@csv.warwick.ac.uk> wrote:
>The original point of this thread was that you don't actually have to change
>the header file itself to change its meaning in C/C++.

True, but this seems like a minor point to me.  No language can protect
against blatantly irresponsible coding tricks.  Languages should instead
try to prevent problems that happen by accident, as most bugs do.  How
could you accidentally use the trick being discussed?

Anyway, the same is true of Ada: you don't have to change an Ada library
package in order to access its private data, and thereby change its
meaning.  You can, for example, use Unchecked_Conversion for that
purpose.  Or, you can simply write a child unit.  But neither of those
can be done by accident.

- Bob