On Sat, Mar 09, 2002 at 01:14:00AM +0900, Chris Gehlker wrote:
> I've been dragged, kicking and screaming, to the conclusion that templates
> are a symptom that C++ is too strongly typed in the first place. They have
> some nasty side effects too in terms of code bloat and making programs hard
> to debug. I'm assuming you've read Meyers's books and know how to mitigate
> the code bloat problem but look again. Isn't he really just using templates
> to defeat the strong typing built into the language.

Do you think the problem is with templates themselves, or could they be
due to the immaturity of the tools available for C++?

It seems to me that debugging problems introduced by templates are due
to buggy debuggers.  The code bloat problem is a tradeoff; it's the
classic speed/size issue.

The biggest complaint I have with templates is compilation time; perhaps
this would be solved by the export keyword (which Comeau should have
soon!).

> Last time I looked, Java had acquired some primitive generic programming
> facilities.

Hmm, I've never heard of this.  Can you point me to some information?

Paul