Re: why do constructors return GtkWidget?

[Thomas Stover <thomas wsinnovations com>]

Emmanuel Touzery wrote:
> It startles me that it doesn't seem to bother people much that all the 
> widget variables are declared as GtkWidget*.
Well, if you want you can use variables of type GtkWidgetOfTypeX * and 
type cast on the call of constructor. You have to type cast back to 
GtkWidget * allot, but I've done that sometimes. At least then more of 
your mistakes are caught by the compiler instead of g_assert(). Most API 
functions work in terms of widgets, while only when you need to do 
widget type specific operations do the derived types come into play. In 
other object oriented languages perhapses the constructors would return 
a derived class instance pointer and let the language work out when a 
base class is compatible or not. Here though, once you have an entire 
system based around typecasting, you just have to accept the trade offs 
of no-nonsense vs learning curve we are fortunate enough to have.