🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <DLD.89Mar3120212@F.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> dld@F.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (David Detlefs) writes:
>Having the greatest respect for Dr. Stroustrup's judgement,
>I'm sure there is a good reason for [not having stronger type checking
>of enums], but I can't think of what it might be just sitting here.

As in C, enums aren't a *real* data type.  Furthermore, cfront insists
on treating char, short, int and enum as equivalent (thus there is no
operator << (ostream&, char), and never a possibility of having both
SomeClass::SomeClass(char) and SomeClass::SomeClass(int) constructors
at the same time).  This can make coding for some classes rather a drag,
and at best forces one to often create little sizeof(int) classes were
enums would have sufficed.  (little enum Booleans with operators << and >>
handling the strings "true" and "false" seem real nice, until you realize
you must make them a class, and supply a base set of unary/binary operators).

G++ is at least willing to recognize the differences amongst all these
types, but alas the *standard* coersion rules will always silently
convert one enum type into another enum type, ala C.  Making them
distinct, without standard coersions, would make many other things
rather difficult and even ugly.

Stephen Pope
scp@santafe.edu