From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,fce663eaf40b52f6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public Path: controlnews3.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.ash.giganews.com!border2.nntp.ash.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!elnk-atl-nf1!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net.POSTED!a6202946!not-for-mail From: Jeffrey Carter Organization: jrcarter commercial-at acm [period | full stop] org User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Manifesto against Vector References: <1952584.Dh8uKYASTL@linux1.krischik.com> In-Reply-To: <1952584.Dh8uKYASTL@linux1.krischik.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 17:41:53 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.184.33.28 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net 1084210913 63.184.33.28 (Mon, 10 May 2004 10:41:53 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 10:41:53 PDT Xref: controlnews3.google.com comp.lang.ada:422 Date: 2004-05-10T17:41:53+00:00 List-Id: Martin Krischik wrote: > Alexander E. Kopilovich wrote: > >>This is quite obvious that the most natural name for this container in Ada >>is Unbounded_Array, because this name perfectly associates with both >>"array" and Unbounded_String, for which it is natural generalization. > > But perhaps Unbounded_Array might be used for something far more Ada like: > > package Unbounded_String > is new > Unbounded_Array ( > Element_Type => Character, > Index_Type => Natural, > Base_Array => String); Right. Unbounded_String is a special case of an unbounded array; in hindsight, it would have been much better for Ada 95 to have had an unbounded array package and to have defined Unbounded_String in terms of it. That didn't happen, though, so there's no point in worrying about it. What Unbounded_String does give us is guidance and reasons about how to design and name an unbound array abstraction and its operations. Since Unbounded_String is a special case of an unbounded array, for consistency an unbounded array package added now should have similar operations to Unbounded_Strings, with the same name when possible, and be named something like Unbounded_Array. Calling it Vector, having a bunch of operations that aren't in Unbounded_String, and different names for the operations that exist in both is a good way to create confusion. However, the design, including the operations and names, of Vector is essentially fixed now (see the previous post by Eachus; I suspect it's more authoritative than the post by Heaney claiming otherwise). There's no longer any point to this discussion; let's direct our energies to something where we can make a difference. -- Jeff Carter "Blessed are they who convert their neighbors' oxen, for they shall inhibit their girth." Monty Python's Life of Brian 83