title: friend AND inline method, what's the point ?
body: <p>I see in a header that I didn't write myself the following: </p>
  
  <pre><code>class MonitorObjectString: public MonitorObject {
     // some other declarations
     friend inline bool operator==(MonitorObjectString&amp; lhs, MonitorObjectString&amp; rhs) { return(lhs.fVal==rhs.fVal); }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I can't understand why this method is declared as friend. I thought it would make sense if the function is defined in another place and needs to access the internal member of the class, but this is not the case here as it is inline and doesn't even need to have access to the members.</p>
  
  <p>What do you think? Is the "friend" useless? </p>