C++Talk.NET

Jan Ringo¹ · Guest

Let me introduce this small thing I have in mind for some time.

The direction of modern programming emphasize mostly short and

single-purpose functions. Most of them are predicates and we can't

completely avoid writting forwarding functions. With const_expr comming

into standard, there will be a lot more of them.

Over time, I started formatting such functions like this:

int func () { return *simple equation here*; };

or, when reaching often demanded imaginary 80-column limit, like this:

int func ()

{ return *simple equation here*; };

The reasons for this formatting is to have more of code on the screen, and

to have the code tabular for better orientation in packs of similar

functions. But actually because heavy use of qualifiers and C++-style

casts, this formatting exceeds the "row length" as well.

So the idea is, when we already have the function-try-blocks, why couldn't

we be able to write just:

int func ()

return *simple equation here*;

At least 4 characters saved Wink

The function-try-blocks were lattest, but

are probably not last, thing I discovered in C++. I can see (but I may be

wrong) that they were introduced merely because of contructor initializer

lists, but when the foundation is already in there why not to build on in?

I am really interesting in what do you think about this.

Is there a problem with described syntactic simplification that I don't

see?

Advantages:

+ No existing code get broken. I don't have very wide experiences with

various compilers but none I work with accept such code today.

+ Less "noise" characters and shorter rows allows more transparent code to

be written

+ Will probably need not more than two short paragraphs of normative

wording

Subjective:

* A little prettier syntax for predicates and forwarding functions

* Could walk hand in hand with const_expr

Disadvantages:

- Not at all suitable for long expressions

- More programming for compiler vendors

--

Jan Ringo¹, Tringi@MX-3.cz

http://Tringi.MX-3.cz

http://www.ringos.cz

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