http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=51823
--- Comment #7 from Marc Glisse <marc.glisse at normalesup dot org> 2012-01-11 15:16:58 UTC --- Paolo started a discussion on this: http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/2003-11/msg00089.html but apparently the code wasn't changed. It is really sad that in most cases the size of reverse_iterator is needlessly doubled just so some rare fancy iterators can use it. And other fancy uses prevent from using a global instead (even a tls). For the special case of a Iota_iterator, when the C++ iterator concept is eventually fixed (or for people who decide to ignore the requirement that reference be a reference), reference should be int, not int const&, so operator* would return by value.
