[Python-Dev] Opinions on const-correctness? (original) (raw)

Tom Emerson tree@basistech.com
Tue, 12 Mar 2002 16:10:01 -0500

Guido van Rossum writes:

-1.

I'd agree, FWIW.

I've never tried to enforce const-correctness before, but I've heard enough horror stories about this. The problem is that it breaks 3rd party extensions left and right, and fixing those isn't always easy. In general, whenever you add a const somewhere, it ends up propagating to some other API, which then also requires a const, which propagates to yet another API needing a const, ad infinitum.

Having done this to a very large product in a previous life (the THINK C v6 IDE) it is an absolute Alptraum retrofiting an existing code-base for this. As much as I'd like to see it, to avoid the constant casting in my C++ extensions, I don't think it is practical.

-tree

-- Tom Emerson Basis Technology Corp. Sr. Computational Linguist http://www.basistech.com "Beware the lollipop of mediocrity: lick it once and you suck forever"