Re: Q: access to subprogram

[jsa@alexandria (Jon S Anthony)]

In article <Dv0LHw.Jq6@world.std.com> bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff) writes:

> In article <ROGOFF.96Jul23093858@sccm.Stanford.EDU>,
> Brian Rogoff <rogoff@sccm.stanford.edu> wrote:
> >Hi Bob,
> 
> Hi Brian,
> 
> >	While this is now straying a bit from Ada 95,
> 
> Indeed.  I hope people don't get too annoyed at us for discussing
> general language design stuff.

I hope not.  This is good stuff.  There aren't many places on the net
where you can find this sort of discussion.


> >.. I'm curious as to 
> >whether you find Pascal style iterators using downward funargs (there, I'm 
> >using Lisp terminology) superior to CLU/Sather-1.0 style iterators. 
> 
> No.  When I was a Pascal programmer many years ago, I used
> procedures-as-params a lot for iterators.  But CLU iterators are clearly
> superior.  I don't know Sather, but from what I've read, they seem even
> more superior.

Sather iterators (IMO) are pretty clearly about as kewl as iterators
get.  They are _extremely_ flexible and can be combined in arbitrary ways
(basically allowing you to "snap together" new iterators from the ones
you have in your bag - the ones provided in the class definitions).  I'd
also recommend the Sather Iterator Technical Report paper on the Sather
home page:

http://http.icsi.berkeley.edu/Sather/


> >how do the Ada 95 alternatives stack up?
> 
> Not very well, I'm afraid.  You can use generics, but you end up with a
> lot of verbose junk for some simple things.  Sigh.

Agreed.  They are more or less "good enough"...


> P.S. I was away for more than a week, so I may have missed some answers
> to my question about full closures.  Did anybody answer that?

I don't recall even seeing it.  I've been noticing lately that several
posts from various people (including myself) have not "got out"...

/Jon
-- 
Jon Anthony
Organon Motives, Inc.
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