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> In my experience this benefit of using pointers (vs references) only when the argument is optional way outweighs the drawback of not seeing an '&' at the call
by quotemstr 5y ago
> In my experience this benefit of using pointers (vs references) only when the argument is optional way outweighs the drawback of not seeing an '&' at the call site.
Maybe so. Reasonable people differ on this subject.
My point is different: it's just not true that if a parameter is a pointer, then as a general requirement you have to check at runtime whether that pointer is non-NULL. It drives me nuts when I see these checks sprinkled throughout a codebase.
- nemetroid 5y ago> My point is different: it's just not true that if a parameter is a pointer, then as a general requirement you have to check at runtime whether that pointer is non-NULL. It drives me nuts when I see these checks sprinkled throughout a codebase. My point is that if you only ever use pointer arguments to indicate that the argument is optional, then the checks are required.
- stevenhuang 5y agoBut it is a reasonable rule, hence it being a general requirement in a lot of places. More nuanced, it's more important to have these null checks on a library's public interfaces than a library's private interfaces. Private interfaces can do with asserts for null check.
- quotemstr 5y ago> it's more important to have these null checks on a library's public interfaces No it isn't.
- stevenhuang 5y agoLibrary authors and users would disagree with you.