Guido> Yeah, once you allow overloading, you can't prevent abuse. I've heard Guido> of bad C++ programmers who write A+B meaning an assignment to A. That kind of thing is uncommon, partly because it can't be done for built-in types. Such practices are widely derided in the C++ community, too. -- Andrew Koenig, ark@research.att.com, http://www.research.att.com/info/ark