[Development] Proposal: adding overloads to pre-existing member functions is ok as long as not a slot

[Volker Hilsheimer]

> On 24 Jul 2026, at 20:03, Edward Welbourne <edward.welbourne at qt.io> wrote:
> 
> Volker Hilsheimer (24 July 2026 17:25) wrote, inter alia:
>> - functions marked as slots (or signals) must not be overloaded
> 
> ... unless they already are ?
> Presumably if they're already overloaded, adding new overloads isn't a
> problem, because anyone taking their addresses already needed to use
> QOverload<>.
> 
> 	Eddy.



While technically true, I’d rather not make things worse for our future selves.

API design for signals and slots is ideally symmetrical: having functions designed as slots, but no corresponding signal to connect to is not helpful; and Qt objects will typically have only one signal overload (if you have an overloaded signal, then all overloads need to be emitted, which is both weird and inefficient).

Volker