C++ FAQ / Section 4 / FAQ 4.22

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Revised Jul 4, 2012

[4.22] What updates were made for the 04/05 release?

5 New FAQs:

• [4.22] What updates were made for the 04/05 release?
  (created)
• [6.4] What's the big deal with generic programming?
  (created thanks to a suggestion from Ioannis Vranos)
• [6.18] What should I tell people who complain that the word "FAQ" is misleading, that it emphasizes the questions rather than the answers, and that we should all start using a different acronym?
  (created)
• [17.7] I have too many try blocks; what can I do about it?
  (created thanks to a question from Gustavo A. Baratto)
• [29.21] What other "newbie" guides are there for me?
  (created thanks to Alf Steinbach for putting together The Correct C++ Tutorial)

18 Changed FAQs:

• [5.1] What does IMHO mean? (or IMO, IMNSHO, FWIW, OTOH, etc.)?
  (added the Acronym Finder thanks to Jarno Lamberg)
• [6.2] Is C++ a perfect language?
  (made it clear that "warts" are common to all languages and tools)
• [6.3] What's the big deal with OO? Updated!
  (rewrote third paragraph to reflect the reality that "as a better C" is sometimes intentional)
• [6.7] How long does it take to learn OO/C++?
  (wordsmithed)
• [6.9] Are virtual functions (dynamic binding) central to OO/C++?
  (added the last paragraph to clarify relationship between virtual functions and generic programming)
• [8.8] What is a handle to an object? Is it a pointer? Is it a reference? Is it a pointer-to-a-pointer? What is it?
  (slight wordsmithing thanks to Steve Fábián)
• [16.22] How do I do simple reference counting?
  (fixed a subtle bug in the assignment operator thanks to Gianni Mariani)
• [16.23] How do I provide reference counting with copy-on-write semantics?
  (fixed a subtle bug in the assignment operator thanks to Gianni Mariani)
• [16.24] How do I provide reference counting with copy-on-write semantics for a hierarchy of classes?
  (fixed a subtle bug in the assignment operator thanks to Gianni Mariani)
• [17.16] How do I throw polymorphically?
  (fixed a typo thanks to Lyle Ziegelmiller)
• [23.6] Okay, but is there a way to simulate that behavior as if dynamic binding worked on the this object within my base class's constructor?
  (clarified that this is called the "Dynamic Binding During Initialization Idiom")
• [23.7] I'm getting the same mess with destructors: calling a virtual on my this object from my base class's destructor ends up ignoring the override in the derived class; what's going on?
  (fixed the cross-references thanks to Alf Steinbach and Michal Bartoszkiewicz)
• [27.13] Are there any other sources of coding standards?
  (added www.codingstandard.com/ thanks to Robert Buckley)
• [29.5] What are the criteria for choosing between short / int / long data types?
  (added the disclaimer that <stdint.h> is not guaranteed to include int32_t thanks to Padmanabhan V. Karthic)
• [29.15] What is this NaN thing?
  (added recommendation to use isnan() where available thanks to Stefan Ring)
• [35.19] Why am I getting errors when my template-derived-class uses a member it inherits from its template-base-class?
  (fixed a typo thanks to Neil Falwasser; while I was in there I rewrote most of it)
• [35.20] Can the previous problem hurt me silently? Is it possible that the compiler will silently generate the wrong code?
  (added a cross-reference and did some wordsmithing)
• [39.13] What special considerations are needed when forward declarations are used with inline functions?
  (added the inline-below-Barney workaround thanks to Ganesh Sundaram, plus the nested-classes workaround; rewrote the "workarounds" paragraph)