🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4hn54s$3am@engnews1.Eng.Sun.COM>,
clamage@Eng.Sun.COM (Steve Clamage) wrote:

>Next, why single out this one particular optimization?

To kill the #preprocessor.

I do not consider it an optimization. It is not about performance. It is
about semantics. I have viewed X from "const built_in_type X =
some_compiler_generated_value;" as a constant. More or less as some kind of
#define that knows about scope. Perhaps this view is incorrect. It is not a
constant. It is a local variable, but a variable you're not allowed to
alter? 

To me there is a difference in interpretation between constant and
variable. I would like to see that semantic difference reflected in the
standard. I believe that it already is to some extent, but only for integer
types.

const int N = 10;
int arr[N]; // this is not about optimization, is it?

In article <4hqd3e$n7k@news.aosi.com>,
yeager@aosi.com wrote:

>One area where such a requirement conflicts with existing rules would
>be if the constant object has a constructor.  Then the existing rules
>would not allow the constant to be omitted since the constructor must
>be called (especially if it has detectable side effects) even if the
>constant is not used in the particular compilation unit.

I talk about built in types: short, int, float, double, char, etc. Their
constructors do not have any side effects.

--
Lars Farm, lars.farm@nts.mh.se
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