Re: By The Dawn's Normal Light

From: Dawn M. Wolthuis <dwolt_at_tincat-group.comREMOVE>
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 14:33:46 -0500
Message-ID: <clebn7$nlk$1_at_news.netins.net>


"Marshall Spight" <mspight_at_dnai.com> wrote in message news:Snxed.236795$wV.213548_at_attbi_s54...
> "Marshall Spight" <mspight_at_dnai.com> wrote in message
news:aIued.412977$mD.116427_at_attbi_s02...
> >
> > [Setns and lists] are signficantly different. Note also there are
totally ordered sets
> > and partially ordered sets, and that neither of these are lists,
either.
>
> I forgot to mention something that I think is significant: it is common
> practice among application programmers to use a list for everything,
> including sets. In such cases, the programmer will "note to himself"
> that the elements in the list are unordered, and treat the list as a set,
> using the appropriate list operations.
>
> I think this has a lot to do with why many (most?) programmers
> are unclear on when collections have meaningful order and when
> they don't. (It seems like this same confusion shows up in the Pick
> examples I've heard, where e.g. invoices or phone numbes are
> stored in a list under customers, even though they are not
> implicitly ordered.)

Agreed and yes, it is a problem in both models. It would be much better if it were clear which collections were ordered and which were not based on the type. --dawn

> Marshall
>
>
Received on Sat Oct 23 2004 - 21:33:46 CEST

Original text of this message