On Tuesday, 4 February 2014 at 22:30:39 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
you can write them twice or use a template (except in a
virtual context), and in both cases
you keep the efficiency of not checking for null when the
argument is not nullable.
That's just what I wish to avoid. Consider adding more pointer
types - the combinatorics quickly explode. Heck, just have two
pointer parameters, and you already have 4 cases.
I wonder how Rust deals with this.
I think it is pretty much same thing as with using specialised
types (i.e. SQLEscapedString) - your API explodes exponentially
if you try to write code with methods/functions that support all
of them but in practice you shouldn't. Same is here. Some
functions should always deal with with nullable types and most -
only with non-nullable. Tricky part is writing your code in such
way that separation is clear but good language guidlines and
examples can solve it.
Also non-nullable types should be implicitly cast to nullable
parameters so you don't always need to support all cases
distinctively.
