Re: mailbox (was Re: intro)

[Jeff Bailey]

On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 12:53:42PM -0500, Alain Magloire wrote:

> C is/was ubiquitous and was choosen as the language .. or put it
> another way .. we did not know C++ 8).

> Would C++ made a difference? I do not know, maybe.

The case where I feel that C++ would make a difference is in
simplicity and type safety.  When we were in Vancouver in 2000, we
were already talking in terms "mime objects", "header objects", etc...
C++ allows us to implement these in a type safe way.

Factory methods for handling URI based mailbox access could still be
typesafe as well as allowing simple (read: Language-supported through
dynamic_cast<>) ways of switching to low level APIs.

Lastly, doxygen is a gift from the gods. =)

All of these things can be done in plain C, but it's always going to
be "our special implementation".  I think doing it in C++ means that
we're using tools that are well enough known that they got promoted
into the language itself.  Debugging tools are geared towards thinking
of objects and APIs using those concepts.

My only concern with C++ is that I'm inclined to require g++-3.0 (or
some very-compliant compiler with a full implementation of the STL).
C++ without templates and the STL is *not* C++ =) Does that cause a
problem on QNX?  Also libtool may have to be upgraded, so I'd be
inclined to make sure that port was up to date first.  (Nudge, nudge,
Alain - found a box for me yet? *g*)

Tks,
Jeff Bailey

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