Comment by prewett

I hate unique_ptr and shared_ptr, using them is so glaringly inconsistent. Half the time you can’t construct a unique_ptr when it’s easy, because you don’t have the information until just enough later (like after a calculation or two in the body of your constructor) that you can’t use the easy way. So how do you transfer a unique_ptr? Well, the obvious ways don’t compile, and you eventually learn you have to move it, which involves using std::move(), but it always seems to go in the place I don’t expect it. And then how do you use a unique_ptr outside of your class? You can’t pass by value, for obvious reasons. Pass by reference, maybe? I think that’s frowned upon, I think you’re supposed to pass a naked pointer, and Modern C++ code is supposed to understand that naked pointers mean I’m loaning you this pointer. But I thought the point of Modern C++ was to get rid of pointers? Anyway, shared_ptr works completely the opposite way. You are supposed to pass the pointer by value. Now you can argue that of course it’s supposed to be that way, and the arguments are all cogent and when you spend half a day figuring it all out it makes sense. Until tomorrow when you forget it all and have to actually use the things. Plus I hate underscores with a passion, it hurts to type them. Modern C++ also seems to like making a line of code longer and longer, because you can’t just make a unique_ptr or shared_ptr with a constructor, no, you need make_unique<typename>(...), and the arguments are magically the same as the type’s constructor, even though it’s obviously a different function. Yuck! At least new and delete are pretty obvious how to use, and only have one special case to worry about ([]). Granted, the *_ptr are better, but I hate using them and wish I could use something that was shorter and easier to remember.