[sldev] Question on Overuse of virtual in C++

[Nicholaz Beresford]

Dirk Moerenhout wrote:
> For starters: I'm no C++ guru so I might be missing something. Feel
> free to enlighten me if so ;-)
> 
> My question is the following:
> Is there a purpose to declare a function virtual if you've no
> intention to overload it? As an example I'd like to take LLTreeNode.

I'd say no.  The only purpose in using virtual is if you
plan to overoad it *and* plan to reference the resulting
objects through a pointer which does not know what the
object is exactly.

On the design side however, unless you are dealing with
extremely performance sensitive code, if in doubt, it's
usually a good idea to make functions virtual and not need
it than the other way round.


> I can imagine it has something to do with the fact that we're using
> template classes but reading what I can find on template classes I
> still don't understand the reasoning.

There's so much leftover stuff (unused members, etc.) in the
viewer that I'd bet that it has no deeper meaning in this case.


Nick