[vtk-developers] vtkVector class -- proposed rewrite

[Marcus D. Hanwell]

Hi David,

On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 8:13 PM, David Lonie <loniedavid at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi list,
>
> I'd like to ask for opinions on the following patch:
>
> http://github.com/dlonie/VTK/commit/6fd3b1c50244174d2ecb2e8bf4ae40996b0f61d6
>
<snip>
>
> A neat feature of this approach is that the vectors only take up the
> same amount of memory as an array of equal length, and most (if not
> all) functions are inlined by the compiler, making the vtkVector
> objects very efficient for both storage and performance.
>
> The problem:
> The existing vtkVector class had few math functions, and handling
> return types was difficult: implementing the math functions in
> vtkVector meant returning a vtkVector<> class, so if we defined, say,
> operator+, in the base vtkVector class we couldn't do something like:
>
I think there is perhaps a simpler, more readable approach to
accomplishing this goal. I do feel a little uncomfortable with the
maintainability of this approach. How about a macro to define the
concrete classes, with their operators? With some of the new changes
in the wrapping perhaps the typedef would be more palatable too?

I am not sure how this will parse with our documentation parser, but
could try it out. It sounds like you have explored quite a few
approaches, but I would like to explore this a little further. I
certainly agree we need more operators, and there is currently more
duplication than necessary (and using a typedef would solve many of
these issues).

Marcus