Re: Basic Properties of Lists

["Mark Lundquist" <mlundquist2@attbi.com>]

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"Jeffrey Carter" <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> wrote in message
news:3C114702.98662A90@boeing.com...
>
> If we can't agree on the basic properties of lists we'll never get
> anywhere. Perhaps we need an appeal to authority here.

Look, you guys both know what a doubly-linked list is; you don't need some
double-dome to weigh in with a ruling on it!

You are having an argument about nomenclature, not about the basic
properties of anything.  You just think you are because you have befuddled
each other with bad arguments.

Jeffrey -- of course "sequence" (extrinsic ordering) is a fundamental
property of any kind of a linked list.  I don't think anyone is confusing
the data structure in question with a set, bag, heap, or any other kind of
intrinsically ordered thing.  Your point is irrelevant to the nomenclature
question.  Ted doesn't deny that a list has direction, he's saying that a
doubly-linked list has two directions, and for some reason he feels strongly
about any kind of preferential scheme that would seem to establish one end
or direction as secondary or relative (like "Normal" vs. "Bass_Ackwards"
:-).

But Ted, what's the big whoopie deal about this, anyway?  Who cares if the
names have a "directional bias", as long as the semantics are clear?  The
important thing is the relationship between the names you choose for the
extremities and the names you choose for "direction", right?  So if the
extremities are "Bow" and "Stern", then the directions had better be
"Forward" and "Aft".  That's why "Head/Tail" is kinda bad -- with a na�ve
choice for the direction names, like "Forward/Reverse", even the originator
of the naming scheme probably wouldn't be able to keep them straight :-).
But you have to start somewhere, and everybody knows it's arbitrary which
ends you call "First" and "Last".  I don't buy the argument that a
preferential naming scheme entails a loss of flexibility or that it obscures
the property of bidirectionality.

Cheers,
-- mark