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=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,TO_NO_BRKTS_FROM_MSSP autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,a644fa9cd1a3869a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-11-13 14:37:40 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!out.nntp.be!propagator-SanJose!in.nntp.be!news-in-sanjose!newsranger.com!www.newsranger.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada From: Ted Dennison References: <9sn4qm$13g29j$2@ID-25716.news.dfncis.de> <9sok8i$142am0$2@ID-25716.news.dfncis.de> <3BF004F4.F74AE461@boeing.com> <9sp5up$g5o$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <3BF0827A.DCF2213C@acm.org> <9sra40$b8p$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <5DaI7.23016$xS6.35866@www.newsranger.com> <3BF15C70.B7EF23E6@san.rr.com> <3BF19106.5FF19B59@san.rr.com> Subject: Re: List container: Insert and Delete Message-ID: X-Abuse-Info: When contacting newsranger.com regarding abuse please X-Abuse-Info: forward the entire news article including headers or X-Abuse-Info: else we will not be able to process your request X-Complaints-To: abuse@newsranger.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 17:37:36 EST Organization: http://www.newsranger.com Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 22:37:36 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:16468 Date: 2001-11-13T22:37:36+00:00 List-Id: In article <3BF19106.5FF19B59@san.rr.com>, Darren New says... > >Ted Dennison wrote: >> You had me, before you presented this example. :-) > >I don't follow. What's unreasonable about the example? It seems like a >perfectly reasonable way of saying "does this come before that in the >list", or saving positions to a stream, or printing something out for >debugging, or whatever. I didn't say it was unreasonable. Its just that its a pretty esoteric function. I'll be charitable and say that for whatever wild reason, I have never required such a thing from a List. Because of that, I am not currently convinced that lots of others are out there who really do need it, therefore it wasn't the best example that could have been chosen. I read from some other responses that I'm not the only one in that boat. Not that I'm saying that there's nothing wrong with you if you need this or some other esoteric function from a list from time to time. But I think all the tools are already there to build your "Offset" function, and it won't really be any slower than if one were provided for you. With the passive iterator, you'd only need a one-line function, with the active perhaps 4 lines of code. When that is the case, the general rule ought to be to leave the function out, unless it is something so common that just about any disinterested observer would be suprised to not find it in there. >Saying "we're not going to implement this operation because it's >inefficient" doesn't sound like a good idea to me, is all. Stated that way, I'd agree too. What I was suggesting was that stuff that can be built w/ the other tools easily and is not O(1) (but *is* O(1) with the other List type) perhaps should not be presented as a primitive. That way people are encouraged to use the right tool (package) for the job. Again, this was just one out of three positions I'd like to see discussed, as a middle ground between total conformity between Bounded and Unbounded and total redesign. I frankly could see a good case for any of the three. >Someone will want to save positions. I believe you are most certianly right there, but no one has spoken up about it yet. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.