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Comment by vlovich123

2 months ago

Then explain that const isn’t deep and a const container can end up mutating state? Pretending like c++ has a consistent philosophy is amusing and pretending this happened because of pedagogy is amusing. It happened because in c assignment is a copy and c++ inherited this regardless of how dumb it is as a default for containers.

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vlovich123

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kccqzy  2 months ago

In C++ regular types have the property that const is deep. If you have a const std::vector<int> the you can't modify any of the integers contained in this container. Naturally for flexibility reasons not all types are regular, pointers being the prominent exception, and things like std::string_view being modern examples of non-regular types.

  • vlovich123  2 months ago

    I feel like you could benefit from watching Scott Meyers about the silliness in C++ if you feel like there’s a consistent and logical feel to the language. A lot of this is c++-isms masquerading sensible ideas through official terms (regular and non-regular types)

    • kccqzy  2 months ago

      Oh I certainly do not feel like there's consistency in the language. The C++ language is such that everyone picks a subset that makes sense to them and is relatively consistent.

      Regular and non-regular types are however a basic idea that transcends languages. I can write a snippet in Python too:

          import copy
    from some.random.module.on.pypi import foo
    a = foo()
    b = copy.copy(a)
    assert a == b

      If that assertion fails it implies the type isn't regular.

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