Re: [boost] [ValueRef] Interest in a new library for immutable values with internal sharing?

On April 21, 2015 5:33:26 AM EDT, Sam Kellett wrote:

On 20 April 2015 at 18:07, Thomas Jordan wrote:

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shared_ptr-to-const idiom. The problem I found with that idiom is

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only guarantees that you can't change it. There's no promise that somebody else doesn't have a non-const ref to the data and so it could in

I had a similar idea for a new smart pointer that would aim to obsolete the that it the worst

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case completely change from under your feet (even if you know it won't get destroyed).

ValueRef doesn't expose (shared) pointers/pointees, they are a hidden, implementation detail. Its interface just deals in values (as shown in the example usage).

Absolutely! Hence the ref in the name. :)

I kept the pointer as part of the interface seeing as I saw it as a smart pointer to replace another smart pointer, but either direction is not wrong for sure.

"Value" doesn't suggest pointer semantics. What's more, I think the value (no pun intended) of such a class is to actually provide value semantics, hiding the pointer semantics. ___ Rob (Sent from my portable computation engine)