Re: Please help a newbie with Booch/Ada.

[Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com>]

On Sun, 30 Aug 1998, Matthew Heaney wrote:
> Stephen Leake <Stephen.Leake@gsfc.nasa.gov> writes:
> 
> > Better would be to fix the Ada 95 Booch components to allow indefinite
> > types. Find the declaration of Bc.Containers, and add "(<>)" as a
> > discriminant to the object type. Be aware this might break lots of
> > stuff; I haven't tried it.
> 
> ... snip ... 
> 
> A component library can't be all things to all people.  Better is to
> provide a small-ish set of primitives from which clients can compose
> their own custom-built abstractions.
> 
> Making all the containers take indefinate subtypes would be the worst of
> all possible decisions, because that would mean _every_ instantiation
> would use heap, even those clients that have definate subtypes.

I agree, but let me note that when a library provides a set of reusable 
generic signatures, I think its a good idea that the parameters to those
signatures be as general as possible, which may mean generic formal 
indefinite limited private types (what a mouthful!).

-- Brian