[Box Backup-dev] Getting trunk ready for release

[Ben Summers]

On 15 Dec 2005, at 23:52, Gary wrote:

> Martin,
>
>> Streams are about the only place where it works, and then only
>> because they are absolutely endemic. Everyone knows exactly
>> what they do, no surprises.
>
> Well said, everyone knows the <<, >> stuff so well that one rarely  
> runs
> into any other functionality other than serialization. When it  
> comes to
> the "general" topic of operator overloading, I wouldn't agree, ==,=,<
> are wonderful for, say, GUID/FILETIME wrappers to establish equality,
> ordering, etc.

The problem is not using operator overloading, it's using operator  
overloading for operations that the operator does not usually do.

As long as == tests for equality, etc, then there's little reason not  
to use them for basic and simple type representation classes. It's  
when operators have side effects or do surprising things that there's  
a problem. Or when they start getting overloaded.

Ben