Re: [Opencxx-users] C++ design patterns

[Grzegorz J. <ja...@he...>]

On Thu, 4 Mar 2004, SF Markus Elfring wrote:

> > Do you think that in general it is better to return an object rather
> > then NULL pointer? If so, why?
>
> The traditional or C style handling of linked list uses the NULL
> pointer as a special marker.

Agreed.

> It can be used in encapsulated C++
> methods, too.

Agreed.

> Another design might be to connect the pointers to a
> ring.

Agreed.

> The STL consistently uses iterators.

Agreed, but I see no connection to previous sentences.

> There is no need to deal
> with pointers directly.

I could agree (dependes on what "to deal with pointers directly" means),
but this does not answer the question. The question was:

    Do you think that in general it is better to return an object rather
    than NULL pointer? If so, why?

> Please look at the section "Invariants", for
> example. http://www.zib.de/benger/STL/Container.html

I fail to see how this answers my question.

Markus,

I is very nice talking to you, but we arrive nowhere. Discussion means
asking questions and ANSWERING them. You asked some questions. I answered
all your questions I understood.

In order to get better understanding of your point, I asked you some
questions (e.g. the question at the top of this e-mail). You did not
answer them (e.g. it is still unclear to me if you think it is better to
return an object or a NULL pointer).

I would appreciate if you could go back to previous postings in our
discussion to address the questions I asked. That would let us move
forward with substantial discussion.

Best regards
Grzegorz


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