After reading Hidden Features and Dark Corners of C++/STL on comp.lang.c++.moderated, I was completely surprised that the following snippet compiled and worked in both Visual Studio 2008 and G++ 4.4.
Honestly, I’m not sure which I think is worse. Having an explicit down-to operator or being able to combine operators in a way that confuses experienced programmers.
It wouldn’t have surprised me at all, if they did (they love their keywords), but that one actually isn’t a keyword. It’s an extension method implemented for the various number types, so you can also write 5.downTo(1).
I’d argue the problem here is more the unary (in/de)crement operator. It isn’t really necessary and most of the time it doesn’t make stuff more readable.
While it is practical and works, it is not an operator by itself. It a combination of two, the unary decrementation and greater than comparator.
Read it as
i-- > value.As explained by multiple answers in the link :)
I’m mainly pointing at the sarcastic answers on that link
Yeah, I have just read through some of those. It is hilarious what people can come up with.
Honestly, I’m not sure which I think is worse. Having an explicit down-to operator or being able to combine operators in a way that confuses experienced programmers.
Kotlin has one (well, more like keyword, but aren’t operators just keywords written in non-alphabetic)
downToIt wouldn’t have surprised me at all, if they did (they love their keywords), but that one actually isn’t a keyword. It’s an extension method implemented for the various number types, so you can also write
5.downTo(1).This kind of combined operators are quite common in the competitive programming world, where the speed of coding is more important than readable.
Yeah, still horrid for real-world programming, though, where readability is ten times as important as how quickly you can type it out.
I’d argue the problem here is more the unary (in/de)crement operator. It isn’t really necessary and most of the time it doesn’t make stuff more readable.
It is readable.
Thanks.