Changeset 43911a0

Timestamp:

Nov 13, 2025, 12:40:21 PM (3 hours ago)

Author:

Michael Brooks <mlbrooks@…>

Branches:

master

Parents:

b94579a

Message:

Add issues with autogen removal: hiding too eagerly and not acting inspectably

File:

• doc/proposals/autogen.md (modified) (1 diff)

doc/proposals/autogen.md

@@ -100 +100 @@
 The main reason to manually remove functions is to enforce a behaviour based interface for a type, as opposed to a data based one. To enforce that new interface, this would have to interact with visibility.
 
+### Automatic Remove Hides Everything
+As soon as you declare a custom constructor, _all_ autogenerated constructors become inaccessible. Often, this behaviour is good, and it agrees with C++. But the desire dual to "manually remove" exists: "manually keep." Furthermore, there is a use case for invoking an automatically provided constructor as a helper, when implementing a custom constructor.
+
+        struct S {
+            int i;
+            int & j;
+        };
+        void ?{}( S & s, int & w ) {
+            // Unique best alternative includes deleted identifier in:
+            s{ 3, w };
+            // intended meaning / workaround:
+            // s.i = 3; &s.j = &w;
+        }
+
+This use case should be considered also, along with visibility. A private helper constructor should be usable in the implementation of a public value-add constructor. The private helper being an autogen is one such arrangement.
+
+Users should have the option to adopt the idiom: All constructors funnel into the most private, all-member constructor.
+
+### Removed Functions Linger
+Even if a function is made CFA-uncallable, it still shows in the emitted C code (`cfa -CFA`). An uncallable function shows identically to a callable function, with no indication of, "This declaration has been deleted," or, "Here is a redaction of X." This quirk reduces the utility of inspecting -CFA to answer, "What constructors would be available to me?" or, "What's the net effect of the constructor declarations and deletions that I've given?"
+
 ## Other Problems & Requested Features