In the work I did, I needed reflection so much that I actually wrote a library and system that implemented reflection on top of C++ in 1992. I think that people don’t appreciate enough what reflection (lightly used) can accomplish for you in certain circumstances. In particular, reflection allows for a much abbreviated approach to unit testing with tools like NUnit that rely on reflection heavily.

-Kelly

I have the deepest respect for people that have the experience and knowledge needed to handle a complex subject like C++. After 10 or so game productions in C++, I still regard the language way to cumbersome to produce stable and maintainable code in. These days I simply try to avoid C++ projects, since I feel more productive in other languages (here are some reasons that I mostly agree on: http://www.fairyengine.com/articles/cppvscsharp.htm). Another important point is that C++ seems to fall behind on the tools side, that is, when compared with the amount of tools available to backup a JAVA or C# production.

When you really have to go the C++ route, then a problem I have experienced is when a complex subject – like C++ or multi-threading – is not regarded complex by the team members. The “I am such a brilliant coder” attitude doesn’t really cut it, when the team needs an “I really need to focus on learning the C++ language” attitude. Synchronize the team and learn from the best e.g. read Effective C++ and discuss what other readers think (e.g. http://www.vterrain.org/Implementation/effective.html).

to me, reflection is another antithesis of object oriented programming … similar to “properties” (C# exposing your private parts to the public)…

asking the question “what type are you” IMHO, violates the notion of polymorphism and the ability to dynamically alter the code behavior by NOT having to ask “what type am I/are you?”

do these features cause the very same spaghetti code in C cause by bad software engineers (not the language’s fault).