Found over at Planet GNOME a criticism of C++ by Callum McKenzie. Now, Callum is always on top of his game, but his argument sounds suspiciously like, “Boy I wish C++ didn’t have this feature.”
What he is referring to is the fact that in C++, templates can refer to themselves recursively. This has been used to demonstrate calculating various types of sequences using only templates, but I’ll admit that I don’t see any useful reason to calculate sequences using that. But, if the template refers to itself infinitely, then obviously the compiler will be unable to expand the template (which is what Callum is complaining about).
It just seems half obvious to me that there would have to be a limit to template expansion. Nor would I like to remove the fact that templates can refer to themselves, as they can be useful in other (non-mathematical) situations. So, there we have it, yet another reason why a C++ misfeature isn’t always the fault of the language.
For the update from the home front: Shift work (my current stage of training) stinks. :-) The crew leadership seems determined to qualify the officer students faster than normal however, so it’ll be over with before I know it, I’m sure. I just hope I get better hours once I finally qualify for the position I’m being trained for.