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From: Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Vocabulary matter: Component vs Element vs Item
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 20:01:38 +0100
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Date: 2013-07-25T20:01:38+01:00
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"Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)" <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr> writes:

> All three words "component", "element" and "item" could be seen as
> interchangeable in plain English (or am I wrong?).

I have a feeling that in English (BrE) "component" and "element" are
more-or-less synonymous, but "item" isn't. "The solution to the problem
has five Xs" - X could be component or element, but not item; an item is
a thing on its own, whereas a component or an element is one of many.

So I think that the Ada Containers match this notion: a container can
have elements (of element_type, eeew), and you replace one of them by an
item.

I see that the Booch Components have this the other way round:

   procedure Insert (C : in out Abstract_Collection; Elem : Item)
   is abstract;