Re: Manifesto against Vector

["Marius Amado Alves" <amado.alves@netcabo.pt>]

> While I agree that Vector is not the best name for this abstraction, I
> have expressed my opinion and the reasons behind it to the ARG during
> earlier discussions of AI-302-03, and the ARG chose Vector. The
> discussion is over.

It's not over. It was tacitly postponed. I remember that discussion, and
I've just reviewed it. The main argument for "vectors" is that it is widely
used. Well, this argument is simply false. I my 20+ years of programming
languages "array" is clearly the term mostly used. "Vector" is just an
STLism and Java fad. There is additional experience exposed in the
discussion. Incidently, Kopolovich participated, and his arguments are
mostly right. As with all naming issues this one was tacitly postponed then
in favour of design issues. But now the design is done with, and it's time
to perfect naming. A similar thing happened with the indefinite elements
issue. It was once tacitly postponed, with the apparent tendency of *not* to
have them. But then when the more pressing issues cleared, the issue was
brought back, and the position inverted: we now have containers of
indefinite elements in the standard. Compared to this, changing "vectors" to
"arrays" will be a breeze. That said...

> I can live with it.

Me too.