Re: Type problem, any suggestion?

Re: Type problem, any suggestion?

[José María Álvarez Palomo]

Dear Simon,

first of all, thank you very much for your fast, kind and accurate
answer. This is the first time I posted something on a newsgroup and I
am very glad ofthe results. Three people have answered my
request and solve my problem in 24 hours.

>> It's not obvious what you were trying to do, so it's hard to offer
>> more help. However, you might try instantiating gen_dat only once;

I am an assistant professor at the University of Malaga and I am trying
to change the languaje programming in a Abstract Data Type subject from
Modula 2 to a more suitable and modern
language (the discussion now is between Ada and Java). So I am coding in
Ada the exercises proposed to the students.

This exercise had to implement a generic ADT (for example a stack) and
to implement a procedure library to widen the ADT functinality (for
example, a procedure to know the length of a stack).
I think your solution it is a very smart way to do it, but I am afraid
it will be difficult to make students understand it.

Anayway, thank you very much again

--
Jose M. Alvarez Palomo
Dpto. Lenguajes y C. Computacion.            Tfno.: 34 952 132750
Complejo Politecnico. Campus de Teatinos.    Fax.:  34 952 131397
E.T.S.I. Telecomunicaciones.                 Email: alvarezp@lcc.uma.es
Univ. de Malaga. 29071. Malaga. Spain.
--

Re: Type problem, any suggestion?

[Simon Wright]

=?iso-8859-1?Q?Jos=E9=20Mar=EDa=20=C1lvarez?= Palomo  <alvarezp@lcc.uma.es> writes:

> This exercise had to implement a generic ADT (for example a stack) and
> to implement a procedure library to widen the ADT functinality (for
> example, a procedure to know the length of a stack).
> I think your solution it is a very smart way to do it, but I am afraid
> it will be difficult to make students understand it.

Yes, I see what you mean!

If you aren't too concerned with the details (I suppose this depends
on whether you want the students to come up with a solution on their
own!), you might say something like

  there is a package gen_dat which we can instantiate for any type
  (eg, integer, float, you-name-it)

  there is an extension of gen_dat called dat_lib (BTW, these names
  seem a little vague to me!)

  if you're going to make a new dat_lib you have to refer to a proper
  instantiation of gen_dat (one that uses the appropriate type)

  and you need to mention the type as well in the instantiation of
  dat_lib to round things off

(I think the last point could be better expressed)