A new container class library

A new container class library

[Corey Minyard]

Hello fellow Ada users.

I have been working on a set of container classes that I'm ready to do
a first release to let people look at.  You can have a look at my home
page: http://www.concentric.net/~Minyard.

Some may ask why I wrote a set of container classes.  I could never
find a good complete set of container classes with a decent free
license and it looked like the Booch components had stopped progress.
Well, now the Booch components are back, but I had already gotten
quite far, so...

This is an initial release and is not terribly well tested and still
has some holes.  I'm looking for comments from people about what the
like, don't like, what problems I might have in the design, better
names for things, etc.  Please try them out and give me feedback.
They are pretty functional if you would like to use them.  They do
require Ada95 and I have only compiled them under gnat-3.11a.

Just a note on these containers.  IMHO, containers are better
specified as basic container types and used for specific purposes.
For instance, any vector or list makes a pretty good stack or queue,
so why not let the user use them that way?  Any container meets the
semantics of a bag or a set, so why not treat all containers as bags
or sets?  Sure, some will be more efficient than other, but it doesn't
limit the user who generally wants a list but occasionally needs a
union operation.  When the package is instantiated or renamed by the
user the user can give them a logical name based upon the function.
These containers were based upon that philosophy.

-- 
Corey Minyard               Internet:  minyard@acm.org
  Work: minyard@nortel.ca       UUCP:  minyard@wf-rch.cirr.com