"Christopher James Huff" <cja### [at] earthlinknet> wrote in message
news:cjameshuff-9C23F0.20475321022004@news.povray.org...
> I am. I definitely would want operator overloading. I've never seen a
> good argument against it..."you can make the plus operator multiply" is
> not a good argument. I can make a "plus()" method that multiplies as
> well...I can also do a lot of useful things with the ability to use
> operators with my own types.

Well, I know a good argument against it. So good in fact that it's the reason
why every games programmer I know doesn't use operator overloading: It hides
processing.

i.e. when you compile a+b, you expect it to compile to a simple add instruction,
and these days most processors can do vector maths so I'd certainly support it
being used for them. The problem is if you've defined your own type of data that
has a "+" function, you incur the cost of a function call invisibly in your
code. This is a very bad thing for time-critical applications like computer
games. Things like this make optimising an absolute nightmare.

Of course, for less speed critical stuff like describing POV scenes, I'd
wholeheartedly support it. But I'm just saying there *is* a good argument
against it.

-- 
Tek
www.evilsuperbrain.com

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