[Development] The future of smart pointers in Qt API

[Maurice Kalinowski]

> From: Development <development-bounces at qt-project.org> On Behalf Of
> André Pönitz
> Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2020 8:00 PM
> To: Allan Sandfeld Jensen <kde at carewolf.com>
> Cc: development at qt-project.org
> Subject: Re: [Development] The future of smart pointers in Qt API
> 
> On Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 05:08:33PM +0100, Allan Sandfeld Jensen wrote:
> > > Allowing _both_ I have not seen actively endorsed by anyone, this
> > > only makes a messy incosnsistent API.
> >
> > I would allow both. It is the only way to remain source compatible,
> > while making it possible for those that wish to, to follow the
> > so-called Core guidelines for C++.
> 
> I'll rather have a uniform API than to have latest bells and whistles in some
> random places. 

I'd like to challenge the categorization of "latest bells and whistles" on something which is in the standard for 9 years now. Also considering that Qt 6 is going to have at least the same lifetime as Qt 5, 8 years, this means that you propose to not adapt an item from the standard for 17 years?

What about new modules? There has been the proposal to at least enable them for those? Furthermore, we should not hinder/block external projects to adapting. As long as this is supported, that could be some middle-ground.

Maurice