🚀 go-pugleaf

According to bill@robots.oxford.ac.uk (Bill Triggs):
>Type info is *essential* for safe down-casting.  The alternative
>of pushing all Derived functions (and implicitly members) into
>the Base -- either as full implementations or as empty or
>error-calling stubs -- is simply laughable...

"Laughable" is not a very helpful description.  Specific objections,
please.

Note that downcasting to Derived* can itself be _one_ virtual function
of Base.

>Creation of an instance of an implicitly specified class....
>It seems that an appropriately global `class-designator' is
>indispensable for this, whether string or global address or
>global enumeration constant ...

The class name is already guaranteed to be unique (name equivalence
and all that).  What need of more?

>... appropriate `static Class* Class::' or `friend Class*'
>new_object() or read_object(), parse_object() functions...

What's missing from a virtual function "Base *Base::clone() const"?

>... Switch()-ing on type ought to be possible.

I fail to see why such a feature should be supported, when the
difficulties of producing a global (multi-module) class->integer
equivalence are so well known.
-- 
Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT     <chip@tct.uucp>, <uunet!pdn!tct!chip>
   "All this is conjecture of course, since I *only* post in the nude.
    Nothing comes between me and my t.b.  Nothing."   -- Bill Coderre