On 15/04/11 18:12 +0200, ext Michal Nazarewicz wrote: > On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 17:59:16 +0200, Phil Carmody wrote: >> I'm just glad this wasn't an insta-nack, as I am quite a fan of >> consts, and hopefully something can be worked out. > > I feel you man. Unfortunately, I think that const, since it's an > after-thought, is not very usable in C. > > For instance, as you've pointed in your patch, the "_ro" suffix > is sort of dumb, but without it compound_head would have to take > const and return non-const (like strchr() does) which is kinda > stupid as well. > > What's more, because of lack of encapsulation, âconst struct pageâ > only means that the object is const but thighs it points to aren't. > As such, const does not really play that well with structs anyway. I'm very glad you've mentioned that point, I forgot to. I've taken the view that in the absense of inside knowledge, const should be inherited down all pointers. So not only will I not change you, but I will not change anything you point to. No hidden side effects of any kind. That reduces where it can be used, but is a much stronger statement when it can be made. > const is, in my opinion, one of those things C++ actually got > right (or close to right). I shouldn't be seen to agree with you on that, lest any fellow Nokians notice that I've implied something positive about C++ after my rant on our core chat channel a few days back. ;-) Cheers, Phil -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxx For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Fight unfair telecom internet charges in Canada: sign http://stopthemeter.ca/ Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx";> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>