Gtkmm: gratitude and suggestions

[Maxim Udushlivy <maxim udushlivy gmail com>]

Hello, everybody!

I use gtkmm for almost one year in my project and I want to thank people 
behind this library. Despite being a community effort it easily plays on 
a par with commercial toolkits. Gtkmm programming is fun (!): it has 
true C++ api, good documentation, builds on strong Gtk architecture 
while hiding its complexities and exposing strengths (well, that sounds 
like a promotion :)

And a bunch of small suggestions...

Why do you pass variables by non-const references instead of pointers? 
Stroustrup recommends against doing this way, because it makes code more 
difficult to read. And you can pass 'NULL' reference anyway: 
"container.add(*(Gtk::Widget *)0)". Using pointers may reduce a number 
of functions: take a look at "bool 
TextBuffer::get_selection_bounds(iterator & start, iterator & end)". I 
need to pass iterators even if I want just a return value. Currently you 
can solve this by introducing a new function without parameters, but if 
there were pointers - set default values to 0 in a header and it's done! 
(As I understand, this requires support from gtkmm generator, though)

About const functions: widgets are non-constant objects by their nature. 
They can change by outside events, like DND. Aren't these const 
functions "misconcept" api and bloat documentation?

The solution to above that shouldn't break api: deprecate const 
functions and those taking non-const references and introduce new that 
take pointers. How difficult to implement this?

Maxim Udushlivy