Derek Parnell Wrote:

> On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 17:55:05 +0900, Bill Baxter wrote:
> 
> > I find it hard to believe that a compiler couldn't recognize that this
> > is a swap operation:
> >     tmp = a;
> >     a = b;
> >     b = tmp;
> > 
> > If it's not harder than I think for some reason, then it's not really needed in the language.
> 
> Maybe it could, but that's not the point of a programming language. A programming language is for people, not computers, to read. It is whole lot easy to recognise "swap(a,b)" or even "a<->b" as a swapping operation than three lines of code.
> 
> -- 
> Derek Parnell
> Melbourne, Australia
> skype: derek.j.parnell

IMO operator is the best. Otherwise anyone will reinvent the wheel again and again. See C++, there are much of swap functions, and much of nothrowing problem in swap.