[Python-Dev] Opinions on const-correctness?

[Tom Emerson]

Guido van Rossum writes:
> -1.

I'd agree, FWIW.

> I've never tried to enforce const-correctness before, but I've heard
> enough horror stories about this.  The problem is that it breaks 3rd
> party extensions left and right, and fixing those isn't always easy.
> In general, whenever you add a const somewhere, it ends up propagating
> to some other API, which then also requires a const, which propagates
> to yet another API needing a const, ad infinitum.

Having done this to a very large product in a previous life (the THINK
C v6 IDE) it is an absolute Alptraum retrofiting an existing code-base
for this. As much as I'd like to see it, to avoid the constant casting
in my C++ extensions, I don't think it is practical.

    -tree

-- 
Tom Emerson                                          Basis Technology Corp.
Sr. Computational Linguist                         http://www.basistech.com
  "Beware the lollipop of mediocrity: lick it once and you suck forever"