Comments on: Getting the Benefits of Strong Typing in C++ at a Fraction of the Cost

By: Vincent Zalzal

Vincent Zalzal — Sat, 07 Apr 2018 16:42:00 +0000

Indeed, you can construct the struct without the struct name, but you need at least curly braces. In the example above:
“`
make_rect(Width{1.618}, Height{1.0}); // compiles and is safe
make_rect(1.618, 1.0); // does not compile
make_rect({1.618}, {1.0}); // compiles and is unsafe
“`
That last line should be forbidden by your coding standards. Having two arguments constructed with aggregate initialization is unclear, and should easily be flagged during code review. It could even be tool-enforced… probably.

If you want the explicit constructors, then you may need the move constructor also, etc, and quite fast, you will be better off with a design like NamedType, in my opinion.

By: Walther Zwart

Walther Zwart — Sat, 07 Apr 2018 11:26:00 +0000

I like this idea. I have used it as well. But removing the explicit constructor makes it much weaker. If a function takes two strongly typed arguments, you can call it with the underlying type and get the order wrong.

By: Martin Moene

Martin Moene — Sat, 07 Apr 2018 07:12:00 +0000

Argh, that would generator the operators also for strong types you don’t want them for (and every other type (:

By: Martin Moene

Martin Moene — Sat, 07 Apr 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Why not use template inline T operator+( T lhs, T rhs ) {…} etc.?

See https://godbolt.org/g/kS6g6K