[interfacekit] Re: BRoster & BWindow

"Erik Jaesler" <erik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> >> A last note:  rather than declare them as members of the classes 
> > > they 
> 
> >> provide access to, I'd like to put them in the BPrivate namespace 
> > > -- 
> >> like BLooperList.  The idea being that if you declare them as 
> > > class 
> >> members, then they have to be in the public interface, and end-
> > > users 
> >> may 
> >> be tempted to use them.
> >
> >That should turn out to be difficult, since the class is opaque in 
> > any 
> >case. :-P
> 
> How so=3F  If it's declared within the main class, the interface will 
> be 
> right there.  Unless we give the private accessor class methods some 
> very obnoxious names, it should be pretty obvious what they do.

Nah, only the class name would appear in the header, not the class 
interface. Cf. Roster.h:

class BRoster {
public:
[...]
/*----- Private or reserved ------------------------------*/
        class Private;

private:
        friend class Private;
[...]
}

> >An API user with a sufficent amount of criminal energy can abuse the 
> >private class anyway, regardless of whether it lives in the BPrivate 
> >namespace or in the class itself.
> 
> True enough.  A user willing to go to that length will also make his/
> her 
> own copy of the header, declare themselves a friend and have all the 
> fun 
> they want.  The point is more to keep this stuff out of the way -- 
> why 
> clutter up the public API headers any more than absolutely necessary=3F

Exactly my opinion. :-)

> >> Better to hide them away in BPrivate.
> >
> >What I find a bit ugly with that solution is that you have to 
> > declare 
> >the class in the namespace in the public header (even before the 
> >definition of the main class).
> 
> Yeah, it's a tiny bit ugly, but nothing truly onerous.  I suspect 
> most 
> people will hardly notice the four lines of code (total) involved.

Even less ugly are just two additional lines in the `private or 
reservered' region. :-P

CU, Ingo

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