Re: Ada Queue

[tmoran@bix.com]

>I need to explain why I chose to iterate through using the variable that was
>passed instead of the temporary variable.  The only thing I can think of
>is that I tried it and it worked.  Trial and error.  Perhaps it's not as
  As in explain to your professor/boss?  "I tried it and it worked" may
be accurate, but it doesn't show you in the best light as a programmer. ;)

>I was wondering if any one could shed some light as to another reason this
>solution works well, or why someone might choose it.
  If you changed the variable name "New_Queue" to "Queue_Head", it
would be a little clearer, since New_Queue doesn't point to anything
new, and in particular not to any new queue, but in fact just
temporarily saves the old value of Q while you go off using the
variable Q, not as a pointer to a (complete) queue, but as a
pointer *into* the queue.  OTOH, if you changed
   New_Queue : Queue;
to
   Cursor : Queue := Q;
and dropped the
       New_Queue := Q;
and the
       Q := New_Queue;
and replaced all occurences of Q in the "true" branch of the "if"
with Cursor then the routine might be a little clearer, though
the fundamental algorithm is the same.