From: Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com>
Subject: Re: Pb with use of redefined "=" operator
Date: 1998/11/10
Date: 1998-11-10T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <wccvhkn89ud.fsf@world.std.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: Pine.BSF.4.05.9811092044320.1064-100000@shell5.ba.best.com
Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> writes:
> I agree that certain "small" data types are best not tagged, but I would
> think that a collection in general is not such a type. ...
I'm not so sure. Suppose you give me a package that implements a
reusable "list of things" type. And suppose I'm writing a compiler, and
I want to use that type to represent the parameter lists of function
calls in the parse tree. Well, I need to be able to deal with fairly
long lists, and write all my algorithms to deal with any length, but I
suspect the *average* list length in this case would be about 1.2 items
(just my guess!). So adding an extra word of storage for a bogus tag
field is a lot, if I don't need it. So in that case, I don't want to
use the "reusable" code.
> Unfortunately, it has many, many flaws.
Indeed. They all do. But this field is still pretty young.
>... The real pity is that I don't
> think that there are really any better languages out there in the same
> language design space. Maybe one day someone will design a successor to
> Ada unencumbered by backwards compatibility (*).
Backwards compatibility was indeed the most difficult design constraint
on Ada 9X. I've heard similar comments from Stroustrup about C and C++.
But backwards compatibility is what everybody wants. Even Java has a
form of backwards compatibility -- it sort of looks like C, on the
surface.
> (*) No, Eiffel isn't even close, IMO.
But it has some good ideas in it, too.
- Bob
--
Change robert to bob to get my real email address. Sorry.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1998-11-10 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 20+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1998-11-03 0:00 Pb with use of redefined "=" operator Fran�oise & Herv� BITTEUR
1998-11-04 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-11-04 0:00 ` Mats Weber
1998-11-05 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-11-05 0:00 ` dewarr
1998-11-05 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-11-06 0:00 ` dewarr
1998-11-09 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1998-11-10 0:00 ` dennison
1998-11-10 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1998-11-05 0:00 ` Mats Weber
1998-11-05 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-11-09 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1998-11-09 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-11-10 0:00 ` Robert A Duff [this message]
1998-11-10 0:00 ` Robert I. Eachus
1998-11-04 0:00 ` Mats Weber
1998-11-04 0:00 ` Fran�oise & Herv� BITTEUR
1998-11-04 0:00 ` dewarr
1998-11-04 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
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