Classes

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Classes
The toolkit implements an object model but presents it though a non-OO API. Daylight must do their own:

type checks, at run-time,
method dispatch and polymorphism,
error management

The run-time tests are needed to prevent:

  dt_getrole(reaction, mol);  /* parameters swapped */

Compare that to a more OO approach:

  mol.getrole(reaction)   # fails: molecules don't have
                          #    a "getrole" method

  reaction.getrole(obj)   # while a reaction does

Using a more modern language gives us those capabilities "for free" because they are built into the language.

C++ can do the first two items at compile time,
The C interface could have additional type safety
- Lose polymorphism, eg, for dt_aromatic and dt_stringvalue