Random pet peeve: '\0'

[Catfish3]

Maybe the default settings are messed up?

[Oria]

Here's my pet peeve:

class MyClass {
    // stuff
};

instead of:

class MyClass
{
    // stuff
};

I don't know why, but it still makes me twitch... however since half the programmers out there do that... I'll just have to get use to it at some point.

[LB]

@naraku VC++2008 Express Edition (I have to use it for compatibility with an SDK)

@Oria My pet peeve is when people define a class with the class keyword instead of the struct keyword, because 99% of the time they only use public inheritance and have the public: keyword right up front.

[Catfish3]

@ LB: so you really can't compile my C++98 standard compliant code?

That's pretty surreal, and inviting ridicule of Microsoft. But it can't be right, it just can't.

[LB]

@Catfish3: I also can't compile anything that prefixes c function names with std:: even if you include the <c****> headers, which the standard mandates should be in the std:: namespace. For example, this won't compile for me:

#include <cstdio>

int main()
{
    std::printf("Hello, cstdio!");
}

http://ideone.com/T98C9f

[moorecm]

Disch wrote:

I was going to write a rant to explain the reasons why I don't like it... but I am getting extremely sleepy so I'll just say it annoys me and I wish people wouldn't do it.

Agreed. An explanation is not even necessary.

[chrisname]

@LB
Try clang or gcc, they're both much better compilers.

[LB]

@chrisname I use clang as my primary compiler. As I already explained, I have to use VC++2008 for compatibility with an SDK.

[Oria]

LB wrote:

@Oria My pet peeve is when people define a class with the class keyword instead of the struct keyword, because 99% of the time they only use public inheritance and have the public: keyword right up front.

Yeah I would have to agree that if you use a "class", it should be because you intent to use private fields, etc. However I usually use classes most of the time because I believe you should keep your members private.

[LB]

It's just personal preference, but I like to put the members at the very bottom to keep them out of the way when looking at the public interface.

[Oria]

@LB:
I do miss C#'s regions for that. (#region #endregion)

[chrisname]

@LB
I declare classes like this:

class my_class {
public:
    int hypothetical_public_member;

    my_class(int _value);
    void do_the_things();
private:
    int value;
    int some_other_members();

    void do_the_first_thing();
    void do_the_second_thing();
    void do_the_third_thing();
};

I like to put the public interface first so that someone looking at the header file doesn't have to scroll down through the private stuff - which they don't need to know - to find it.

I use struct for very simple classes which only (or mostly) use public members and are POD (or almost-POD). For example, this is a struct I used in a game (so that less code would need to be changed to port the game from SFML to, say, SDL):

struct color {
    std::uint32_t  r, g, b, a;

    color(std::uint32_t _r, std::uint32_t _g, std::uint32_t _b, std::uint32_t _a = 255)
    : r(_r), g(_g), b(_b), a(_a)
    {
          // Do nothing.
    }

    sf::Color to_sfml()
    {
        return sf::Color(r, g, b, a);
    }
};

[moorecm]

chrisname wrote:

I use struct for very simple classes which only (or mostly) use public members[...]

I use class/struct interchangeably--often whichever one saves a line. A lot of developers think it's a big deal or something to define a constructor in a "struct", etc..

[LB]

I'm with moorecm, I just use struct or class based on which one is less typing. Which means I use struct 100% of the time...

class Blah : public Meh
{
public:
    void Bleh();
};

struct Blah : Meh
{
    void Bleh();
};

[TheIdeasMan]

My Pet Peeve:

while(package!= 'A' && package!='a' && package!='B' && package!='b'&&
package!='C' && package!='c')

This just plain ugly & non scalable.

I much prefer a switch with a quit case & a default clause to handle bad input, with the whole thing in a bool controlled while loop.

With structs, I like to use them to create types to help achieve function overloading where there is only 1 member variable . For example with geometric classes where there are lots of points & double values. Point objects would still be classes, because they can be used on their own where public access isn't correct. That way I can have public access to the members of the struct, but have the structs as private members of the class. Think of an arc with centre points, start & end points, points on the arc, start & end angles, and various distances. I think it is important to always have the structs as private members in a class object.

With private variables, I like them at the start of the class for 2 reasons: I like to know straight away what member variables are in a class; I don't like seeing the use of private variables, in initialiser lists or otherwise, before the declaration of the variables.

[LB]

@OP what about L"\0" and other variants?

[chrisname]

@TheIdeasMan
In that case, I would do this:

template <typename T>
bool match(const T& key, const std::vector<T>& values, bool sorted = false)
{
    if (sorted)
        return std::binary_search(values.begin(), values.end(), key);
    return std::find(values.begin(), values.end(), key);
}

// ...

while (match(std::tolower(package), { 'a', 'b', 'c' }, true))
    // ... 

It might be a bit slower, especially for lots of unsorted data, but it's better IMO.

[LB]

The best part is that without changing the code it will slowly get faster as compilers get better at optimizing abstracted code that uses the standard library :)

[TheIdeasMan]

@chrisname

I meant that I see this sort of thing from newbies all the time, so my solution caters for them - templates are way too much for a newbies.

Also, this sort of thing is usually for a menu of some kind, or a basic calculator - so a switch inside a while seems perfectly OK IMO. The newbies code is only there to validate the input, I prefer to use the default clause for that. And it is scalable in the switch, rather than trying to get all the options on 1 LOC.

[LB]

Your solution caters to those that insist on misusing the console as though it were a user interface ;)