------- Additional Comments From adah at netstd dot com 2005-08-10 03:11 ------- (In reply to comment #71) > Subject: Re: can't compile self defined void distance(std::vector<T>, std::vector<T>) > On Aug 9, 2005, at 10:41 PM, adah at netstd dot com wrote: > > > > Passing this information to the user is difficult, unless GCC emits a > > diagnostic message to help users do so, as GCC is currently doing on > > the > > missing of `typename'. > even then as I said before when it comes down to it, nobody reads those > messages as they think their code is correct. > See my example when sequence points, we do warn about it in 4.0.0 and > above > (for C++; for C, we have warned since at least 3.0.4) and people still > file bugs. > Another example of where people don't read is the changes page, which > describes > changes to the compiler which could hinder (or benefit) them. One > example is > the change in the namelookup for templates to be more towards the > standard. That > example shows that we still get bug reports so even with a better error > message, > people will have something to complain about. > -- Pinski
It is regretful that many people cannot read. But many people *can* read. Converting from GCC 2 to GCC 3 made my code much more conformant to the C++ standard, owing to the messages like that of `typename'. And the messages emitted by a compiler are read more often than something in a doc page. The main problem of the current error message is that it even mentions nothing about std::distance. So even an experienced programmer can have difficulty finding out the problem if he does not know std::distance and has not encountered the problem before. Not to say understand the problem. As the very beginning, adding a message like `In instantiation of std::distance...' will be helpful. Yongwei -- http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=15910
