[Development] QUIP 6: removing top-level const from return types

[Lars Knoll]

> On 23 May 2017, at 07:26, Marc Mutz <marc.mutz at kdab.com> wrote:
> 
> On Tuesday 23 May 2017 00:48:53 Thiago Macieira wrote:
>> Then we are right now concluding this kind of change should not be in that 
>> part of the QUIP.
> 
> The QUIP gives an _algorithm_ to categorise SiCs, it's not a listing. There's 
> a list, yes. It's called _examples_.
> 
>> if there's a chance of existing code breaking
> 
> How can removing top-level const from a return type "break" existing code any 
> more than adding a function overload?

Probably not more than that, you are right.

But what I dislike is the fact that we get different signatures on different platforms (because we can't change this on MSVC without breaking BC). That can cause some unwanted side effects (a detach happening on Linux, but not on MSVC), and incompatibilities in Qt between different platforms (code that compiles on Linux doesn't compile on MSVC). These are side effects of such a change that we need to take into account when considering whether it's worth changing this in 5.x.

Cheers,
Lars