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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,229ea0001655d6a2 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!news.glorb.com!news-in.ntli.net!newsrout1-win.ntli.net!ntli.net!news.highwinds-media.com!xara.net!gxn.net!194.159.246.34.MISMATCH!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!not-for-mail From: Simon Wright Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Generic Package Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:50:03 +0100 Organization: Pushface Message-ID: References: <1177539306.952515.222940@s33g2000prh.googlegroups.com> <1177601484.444701.171560@r35g2000prh.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: pogner.demon.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1177624204 5705 62.49.19.209 (26 Apr 2007 21:50:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 21:50:04 +0000 (UTC) Cancel-Lock: sha1:aR+GdSd34WtBIjyJi/7JJCn9e6s= User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.95 (darwin) Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:15327 Date: 2007-04-26T22:50:03+01:00 List-Id: "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).