[OpenVerse] C++

[Andy Goth <unununium@openverse.org>]

[MODERATORS NOTE: I AM A PURE ANSI C ADVOCATE, BUT C++ IS GOOD FOR GUI PORTIONS
OF APPLICATIONS THEY CAN CO-EXIST]

I've been thinking about the C++/Railway problem.  I know that a great deal
of people hate C++, but I'm not one of them... I think it's kinda fun.  And
there are at least four others who share that opinion.  It would be a shame
to leave out little balding Bobby and that creepy guy who I used to play
Magic with, wouldn't it?

I gather that the issue is that the vtables in C++ class instances cannot
be updated (they're nonstandard; each compiler is free to do them
differently--I don't think they're even required to use vtables at all as
long as they have some working system) when Railway relinks.  If this can't
be fixed, well... Railway cannot be allowed to relink (i.e. unload and
reload modules) because that would break all the function pointers that C++
uses behind the scenes.

I think this also means that Railway cannot link in every module
separately.  Instead it'll have to get them all at once.  This isn't really
a problem since at startup Railway can grab a number of modules and link
them at the same time (to save the wasted time of linking, relinking,
relinking, and relinking again as the modules change).  To make things work
out, a program that uses C++ vtables will have to restart to have module
changes take effect.  It'll also have to write every module it'll ever use
in its configuration so that they'll be loaded at startup.

What do you think, guys?  Should C++ be banned?  Or should we take
advantage of this already-existing "feature" (read: crutch) of Railway?

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unununium@openverse.org  zap.to/andygoth/
 andygoth@ectisp.net         35256413
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