From: Deane Yang (deane_yang_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-11-06 18:17:15
Andy Little wrote:
>... but could someone explain exactly why
>>something like:
>>
>>inferred_type add_units(units_type first, other_units_type second)
>>
>>is useful?
>
>
> operators ..... ! :-)
Great! Could you elaborate by what you mean by this?
The only operator+ I ever want to see in a units library
is one that adds two quantities with the same units.
But that's just my personal quirk.
I want to know why it is useful to be able to add two
quantities with different units and have the operator+
do the unit conversion inside of it. I'm sure there's
an obvious answer that will make me feel very dumb.
I guess I'm just a very risk averse person and prefer the safety
of strong type-checking and explicit casting to
the convenience of an operator+ that allows two different units.
(I do agree that what you're trying to do is an interesting programming
challenge.)