Re: I'm sorry, but this is unacceptable (union members and ctors)

[Robert Dewar <dewar at adacore dot com>]

michael.a wrote:

> My general opinion is it serves no one to be regressive about extensions.

I think there is a lot of merit in

a) C++ programmers writing in C++ and not idiosyncratic dialects
b) C++ compilers implementing C++ and not idiosyncratic dialects

Certainly if you are interested in porting code, as seems to be the
case here, following a) is a good idea.

> It would be interesting for someone to try to make a practical argument that
> is anything but a nest of technicalities, as to why ctors and unions
> shouldn't be mixable.

There are hundreds of possible extensions to any language that make
technical sense, but that still is not a reason for violating b) above.
The only time that it is reasonable to extend is when there are clear
signals from the standards committee that it is likely that a feature
will be added, in which case there may be an argument for adding the
feature "prematurely".