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From: Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: a new language, designed for safety !
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 21:02:06 +0000 (UTC)
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Date: 2014-06-14T21:02:06+00:00
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On 2014-06-13, Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com> wrote:
> "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> writes:
>
>> 1. From the language design POV, everything possible must be moved out the
>> language into the library. If Ada were a better language, array could be a
>> library container. If Ada were a worse language containers must have been
>> implemented at the language level.
>
> I agree.  In Eiffel, "array" doesn't have any special built-in
> syntax/semantics.  It's just something declared in the predefined
> library.  In general, putting functionality in the predefined
> library greatly simplifies a language.
>

Thanks for the observation; it's been a _long_ time since I last looked
at Eiffel. I think perhaps another visit might be in order.

> But I think what Simon wants is convenient syntax for dealing with
> associative arrays, and that's reasonable.  But in a better language,
> that wouldn't require associative arrays to be built in.
>

Yes, that's what I am really after.

> By the way, I don't much like the term "associative array".  To me,
> "array" implies random access (i.e. roughly constant-time component
> access).  I'd prefer "map" or "mapping", where "array" is a kind of
> mapping, and "hashed map" is another kind.
>

I see your point (and Dmitry's argument above is interesting as well.)

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world