Re: Additional Glib::RefPtr Safety Mechanism

[Rob Pearce <rob flitspace org uk>]

On 31/08/2019 12:56, Karsten Pedersen wrote:
> I have yet to see it in any gtkmm code (you will be pleased to hear)
> but my personal opinion is that it is surely a nice idea to attempt
> to make C++ 100% safe rather than having to rely purely on the skills of
> a developer.
That's a nice sentiment but it's also garbage. You NEED to rely on the 
skills of your developers, because they are (hopefully) intelligent 
humans who know what they're trying to do. The library isn't. It can't 
achieve what you want.
>   This is generally the trend in Rust communities but it
> seems the culture in C++ communities is that not all safety is
> necessary.

No, the culture in C++ communities is that safety is something you 
design in, not something the universe provides for you. This is because 
C++ developers live in the real world, and it's the reason code written 
in Rust is mostly astonishingly bloated, inefficient, system-crippling junk.

Padded playgrounds are nice for toddlers but adults shouldn't need them. 
Your safety library may be great for students (although I'm not 
convinced they wouldn't learn better by having a few catastrophic 
experiences) but for real-world developers it belongs in a suite of 
stuff like valgrind.