Re: Usage of Interfaces with Ada 95

[Georg Bauhaus <georg@strudel.futureapps.de>]

>>>>> "Matthew" == Matthew Heaney <matthewjheaney@earthlink.net> writes:

: Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org> writes:
:: Personally I have no problem at all with what the
:: STL does, just some of the names it's adopted for the concepts ..

: The English-speaking world (and the German-speaking world too,
: apparently) has settled on the terms "container" and "iterator."

As for German, that settling (which is a fashion rather, I'd say) is
certainly not an argument, if you care about language. (And I'm glad
to have seen a Deprecated names package in Charles, so some language
work is being done ;-) People seem to have differing views of what
"iterator" should mean, but that aside, might we suspect that there is
some Russian English in Stepanov's work?

For example, every other "new computer word" here (in Germany) has
been coined out of helpless (and probalby thoughtless) ignorance (no
rebuke intended), being pressed for a word.  There is "gedownloadet"
which is there because people haven't bothered to think about what
"download" means, or even just look it up in an older computer
dictionary. If you know that "geladen" is a perfect match for
"loaded", why not use "geladen", as has been done until a few years
ago?

Personally, I'm impressed with learned language use which is both
idiomatic and traditional, though not outdated, and that is not just
common in current computer speak, or, hip if I may say so.  The former
I find is the case in Burns' and Wellings' "Concurrency in Ada".
Sometimes their way of employing natural language is as different from
that found in other computer textbooks as it is helpful in
understanding.

It might be fun if you mix two languages and grammars like Martin
Luther and friends did with Latin and German. However, Luther's
translation of the reference book of Christian religion is an attempt
to avoid Pigeon German. Still another language's influence might
add to expressive power of a language. Which version of "Iterator"
is better in that respect?

: And "factory method."  And "visitor."  And whatever.  So stop
: fighting it and read Gamma!

who is German.

("Refactoring" is becoming popular as well. Search the Google
c.l.ada archives for "refactoring", and "pompous" :-)

You will certainly have noticed that English is not a language I know
well enough to be allowed these paragraphs.  Still, sometimes reading
STL speak (or, though to a lesser extent, Booch speak) is as if by
analogy I have to groke the new fictitious linear algebra term
"samegestaltism" which is then just barely related to "homomorphism".

Maybe it is a good thing to have "slightly new words" for the
new STL way?


Georg