itaps-parallel Two options from today's iMeshP phone conference

[Jason Kraftcheck]

Mark Beall wrote:

> 
> Would it make sense for an implementation to define a value that means
> NULL (for here and other places that it could be of use)? 

Well, what value would you choose and how would you guarantee that it
wouldn't be problematic for any existing implementation?  Zero would clearly
be troubling for an implementation that was array-based and simply used
array indices as handles.

> Passing the
> root set here could be confusing ("ah I see, everything is always added
> to the root set since I always have to pass it here. Oh wait, sometimes
> I don't have to pass it here, does that mean that this entity won't be
> added to the root set?")
> 

I think this was one of the reasons that Tim argued that the function accept
any set in the serial case.  It would be less confusing than documenting a
special case where an app need always pass the same redundant value (when
working in serial.)

I suppose we could pass a pointer to the handle, such that the pointer could
be NULL.  I'm not sure that that would be any less confusing than using the
root set, through.  And we already use the root set handle in exactly the
same way in iMesh_loadMesh.

- jason