🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <40834p$lm3@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM> clamage@Eng.Sun.COM
(Steve Clamage) writes:

|> Adding a module system to C++ would make it generally easier to use,
|> particularly for large projects, but would also make it a different language.
|> Stroustrup elected not to go that route in designing and developing C++, and
|> the C++ committee also elected not to go that route.

|> The committee felt it had more than enough work to do without adding
|> another huge pile of work. Figuring out a module system, or some subset
|> that would ease separation of interface and implementation, would take
|> years of experimentation in addition to all the work that has been done
|> and is still being done on the standard. For example, the template rules
|> were published in the ARM in 1990. The rules are still being worked on
|> as new problems with the definition of templates are discovered.

|> I'd like to suggest that someone take the time to define and implement
|> something like a module system for C++. To gain wide acceptance, it should
|> allow existing C++ source and object code to be integrated into Modular C++
|> (if I may coin the term) without modification, as well as provide the same C
|> compatibility as C++ currently has. When you are done, submit it for the next
|> round of C++ standardization. The timing should be about right.

It's too late now, but I wonder if having a module system of some sort
wouldn't have made the template problem easier.

I suppose that the problem Bjarne faced was that doing generic classes
with #define is an even greater pain than doing separate compilation
with textual inclusion.  So the interest in having templates was
greater.  (If you really want to go batty, try implementing the ideas
in Barton and Nackman on a compiler which doesn't support templates.)
-- 
James Kanze         Tel.: (+33) 88 14 49 00        email: kanze@gabi-soft.fr
GABI Software, Sarl., 8 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
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