Re: List container: Insert and Delete

[Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com>]

In article <3BF26AAC.C0830E5B@brighton.ac.uk>, John English says...
>
>Uh huh. So "hard to use" is one no-no. Are there any others that spring
>to mind? Does "hard to use" apply to all the other libraries out there,
>or are there other reasons for not using those?

What got Booch into the "hard to use" category was its reliance on hierarchies
of generics. Unfortunately, if you throw that out, it also throws out just about
every industrial-strength component library out there. 

I think the basic problem is that pretty much everyone has approached the
problem either from a purely industrial perspective or from a purely acedemic
perspective. Thus we end up with a bunch of libraries that might be great for
their designed enviroment, but suck for the other.

What we are shooting for I believe is something that can be shipped with Ada
compilers (as part of the language, or as a cannonical add-on), which will be
usable for *both* purposes. That obviously means it isn't going to be ideal for
either purpose, but it should be usable most of the time. People will still be
free to go get one of the other component libraries if they find that this one
just isn't quite up to their needs.

>I feel that knowing why existing libraries don't cut the mustard might
>help in designing something that does...

I think (I hope anyway) we've already been through that process. Perhaps listing
some of the decisions and goals we arrived at on a webpage would help newcommers
to the discussion (and those who haven't had the fortitude to follow every post
:-) )?

We could certianly use your input in this process. Right now I believe Ehud is
the only active participant from acedemia, and I'm afraid things might be
getting a bit too much of an industrial tilt as a result. For instance, I'm more
interested in your views on the subprogram and type names than I am with most
people's, because you and Ehud are the ones who are charged with teaching people
how to think about lists, which presumably includes proper terminology.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html

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