Jonathan Wakely writes:
On Thu, May 06, 2004 at 05:15:56AM -0500, Aleksey Gurtovoy wrote:
Thorsten Ottosen writes:
"Aleksey Gurtovoy" <agurtovoy@meta-comm.com> wrote in message news:073d01c43295$1d7354b0$6401a8c0@metacomm.com... | Pavol Droba writes:
| > You are not quite right. Sequence concept is precisely defined in C++ standard. | | Yes, and that's unfortunate, because it is essentially a dead concept -- "nobody" | writes generic code that relies on it -- that has occupied a good name. In fact, | "Collection" is exactly the word that would perfectly fit to describe what the | standard choose to refer to as "Sequence". I don't think going the other way | around would be a good call.
what would you use for sequence then?
Well, I don't have an ultimate answer, but here's a couple of candidates:
Range Iterator Range View Series Succession
These terms are not synonymous.
I didn't imply they were.
Some imply an ordering, others do not.
Depending on your definition of ordering none or all of them do.
The standard's "Sequence" concept has a definite ordering,
Doesn't matter what standard's "Sequence" concept has; for one, it's a dead concept. A "sequence" as a word in a programmer's dictionary doesn't imply a definite ordering in the sense in which the term is used in the standard; "random sequence" is a perfect, well, sequence.
neither "Collection" not "Container" imply any ordering.
They all guarantee that the 'end' reachable from 'begin', that is, that by repeatedly incrementing 'begin' you'll go through a range of successive elements until you reach the 'end'. I don't see anything inherent in the word "sequence", or, for that matter, "series" or "succession" that implies more than just that. Again, "random series" or "random succession [of something]".
My dictionary defines collection as "an accumulated assortment of things of a particular type" - which sounds ok for this concept. There's no implication of containing or owning the things, so the fact that VB (or CS in general) have used the term to describe ownership is a fault in VB, not the word!
Programming is all about communication; it doesn't matter what the original meaning of the word is/was; what matters is what your teammates think of when they hear it. I'm claiming that most people think of collection classes, i.e. containers with storage.
| In CS terminology, collections are inherently | associated with storage;
can give any examples of this CS terminology?
I don't think there's a good case for either side of the argument. Several of the sites you give as examples of "Collection" implying storage contradict your point:
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/arch/people/j-sargeant/ufolib/node5.html
Does it? Seems like a supporting case to me: virtual class Collection[T] inherits Any ** insert a T into the collection insert(t:T) : Self[T] is deferred ^^^^^^^^^^^ If that doesn't imply storage, I don't know what does.
There Sequence is an ordered Collection, which fits both the STL terms and the proposal for "Collection Traits".
IMHO the example of range_view(0,100) could happily be called a ForwardCollection - there's no containment but there's a definite ordering.
My problem is that Collection _does_ imply storage for me, and the connotation is continuously reinforced by a numerous examples from all around. -- Aleksey Gurtovoy MetaCommunications Engineering