Re: Comparing Access Types

[Jere <jhb.chat@gmail.com>]

On Friday, November 10, 2017 at 11:00:17 AM UTC-5, Robert A Duff wrote:
> Jere writes:
> 
> > I'm not hugely in disagreement here, but I am curious as to why it doesn't
> > make sense.
> 
> What would it mean?  If X /= Y, then X < Y returns either True
> or False arbitrarily?  That could work, but it doesn't seem all
> that useful.
> 
> If a garbage collector is moving things around in memory,
> then it would be hard to implement efficiently.

Ok, that makes sense.  The use case I had was more for keys in a map.  I
didn't really care about the actual order, but wanted a way to store a
collection of objects using the access types as the key.  That
would allow for quick searching in large groups.  With the incomplete
type formal parameter, I was having trouble coming up with options.

However, I don't have to implement it that way.  Dmitry comments 
gave me some ideas.  I can either push that off to the client in 
a different way or add more formal parameters to my generic to 
support it if I want.

> 
> > For debugging purposes, I do wish there was a way for me to get a printable
> > unique value for access types.
> 
> Unchecked convert to type Integer_Address, then use 'Image.
> 
> - Bob

Thanks!  This worked. I can use that in my debug package.