[webkit-dev] Bools are strictly worse than enums

[Peter Kasting]

On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 1:28 PM, Eric Seidel <eric at webkit.org> wrote:

> It seems to me, that using bool types for function arguments is strictly
> worse than using an enum.  An enum is always clearer and can be easily
> casted to a bool if needed.
>
> doSomething(something, false);
>
> Is much less readable than:
>
> doSomething(something, AllowNetworkLoads);
>

I agree that in general, the latter is better.

Do any C++ gurus have further information to add here?
>

Restricting bools can limit your ability to pass results of one function as
arguments to another.  It is plausible to have function A return a different
"enumerated boolean" type than function B takes, for example, if one type is
a special-case of the other.  This means you'll need to add explicit ?: ops,
conditionals, or casts, all of which make me more unhappy than the original
bools did.

This is probably an issue in a minority of cases, but it might be reason to
use "should" rather than "must" language here.

PK
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