Re: Generic Package

[Simon Wright <simon.j.wright@mac.com>]

"andrew.carroll@okstate.edu" <andrew.carroll@okstate.edu> writes:

> I think the Booch components may have something I'm looking for.
> Even though this site http://www.adapower.net/booch/overview.html
> says it would be better to use a "collection" (there's the word
> again) than a linked list I think I could have used the generic
> linked list for my purposes.  I wish the site had given more
> information as to what a "collection" is and where to find more
> information about it.  Then again, I didn't read the whole thing.

That site's rather old (now http://booch95.sourceforge.net/) but those
particular remarks are still valid.

I say

   "Many people, faced with the BCs for the first time, choose Lists
   (Single or Double) as their standard Container.

   "This is probably not the best choice. Lists are complex entities
   which, I suppose, would be useful if you were implementing a
   list-processing engine like Lisp.

   "You'll be a lot better off using Collections!"

and a few lines further up it says that the components available
include Collections and Lists. I guess you were meant to read between
the lines and infer that Collections => BC Collections.

What I was trying to say was that many people think "I want to have
lists of things, I'll use Lists" but that most of them would be better
off using Collections ie BC.Containers.Collections because BC Lists
are hairy. I have never personally found a need to use BC Lists.

The choice of components and names was Grady Booch's, not mine!

You could well have used the BCs (or one of the other libraries that
people have pointed out), though your first choice as a student
probably should be the Standard containers! (assuming Ada05). If
nothing else, you'll find lots of documentation (RM & Rationale, to
start with, and modern textbooks).