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C++ superiority
(lemmy.nz)
With a bit of fiddeling you can use every kind of bracket to basically make function calls in c++
Here are the links to the snippets, all compile and run
Rust: https://godbolt.org/z/bM3d7bG14
Operator overloads is something that sounds like a good idea until you experience them firsthand. Just properly name your functions for fuck’s sake.
Like all of the footguns in C++, it's only a problem if the codebase uses it wrong. When used correctly (i.e. only when behaviours mimic built-in types, and without side effects), it helps makes code more readable
Don't do what numpy does, which is to define * for two arrays. Without learning the library, you wouldn't know whether this performs element-wise multiplication, matrix multiplication, dot product or cross product. Worse yet, it behaves differently to Python's built-in * for lists (which is also bad), which concatenates N copies of the list
Every time I use a language that doesn’t have operator overloading I wish I was using C++. It’s absolutely maddening to have to read and write things like “end.subtract(start)”.
Clearly you’ve never had to read code like
I prefer Java style:
Not hard to read.
Operator overloading is awesome in a functional language. Haskell allows for a lot of creative stuff with operators, but since they can't have side effects, must conform to predictable types, and have specific requirements they are somewhat understandable. Idris is also very ergonomic when it comes to operators.
C++ allowing a library to override the
+operator withsystem("rm -rf /")is a lot less awesome.Honestly, I'm glad to have them, it can make a number of things simpler. For instance, a program I wrote had a number of duration fields that had to be stored in XML files and updated every once in a while. It was something that had to occur very often in the code: add a value to the duration, set that value in the XML data, and save the XML file. So I created a class that stored the date/time value and a pointer the XML element (it could be assumed that nothing else would be changing the value in the XML file and if it did, then that change should be overwritten) and overloaded the
+=operator (among others), so then all I needed was to create theDurationFieldobject, and then I could godurationFieldX += time2 - time1for instance. I could abstract all the logic away and make it very clear and easy to write. Could I have made it so that I have to todurationFieldX.add(time2 - time1)? Of course I could have. But IMO that variant is less neat and less readable.I'll jump on your unpopular side. With a decent IDE you should be able to point/click and decode what any operator is doing in any context. If I have two vectors, or quaternions, and I want to operate on them, why should I be forced to pass them to a standard function instead of clearly seeing what I'm doing. If you can't be bothered to know the types of your variables in a strongly typed language... IDK.
As a computational physicist, I appreciate operator overloading IF used properly.
Example of a good use: + for matrix addition
Example of a bad use: left shift operator << as a pipe
I still don't understand who's in the C++ committee that they would choose this garbage over a function
My theory is that they came up with the concept of operator overloading (or copied it elsewhere and were exited) and decided the best place to demonstrate and sell the concept is in the most used console input and output standard functions.
Edit: I realize my contempt for this decision is not evident here, so let me add that it was a terrible choice in their part indeed.