Jim Smith wrote:
> You could also just make one member function a friend, but including the
> friend feature is not a good idea.
Using 'friend' can significantly decrease development time - but only if
it is used properly. That is true for any language construct (e.g.
'goto'). Example of what I consider appropriate 'friend' usage:
class A
{
public:
class B;
friend class B;
private:
...
};
class A::B
{
private:
...
};
Where B needs to access the protected/private data of A. Here it makes
sense as B is clearly a logical sub-category of A to support A. Could
you put all of B into A? Probably. But it would also "pollute" the
purity of A. I'm sure there is also some pure OO method as well that
doesn't use 'friend', but if something gets the job done AND results in
easily maintained code (and possibly fewer lines of it) that the entire
team understands but just happens to be non-OO, which is better?
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