Re: [Rapideuphoria-develop] Map Interfface Ideas: Maps in 4.1?

[Jeremy C. <je...@co...>]

Maps are as essential to a programming language as the the array.

Would you want to program like:

array:set_element(my_array, 1, "John")
value = array:get_element(my_array, 1)

instead of

my_array[1] = "John"
value = my_array[1]

Why are you so against enhancing the language for common use patterns? 
Enhancing the language for situations that never occur should be avoided 
like the plague.

Jeremy

-----Original Message----- 
From: Shawn Pringle
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 9:43 AM
To: rap...@li...
Subject: [Rapideuphoria-develop] Map Interfface Ideas: Maps in 4.1?

How about this:

value = map:get( this_map, mykey )
set( this_map, mykey, new_value )

You could have two implementations of maps in the same program.  Whereas
one might be faster for some kind of data the other might be better for
the other.  This is a fundamental reason to reuse function names.

Imagine it might be used like this:

include std/map.e as country_names -- map of country_names (using the
4.0 front end version)
include std/bemap.e as stmap -- map for students (using the backend)
include std/bemap.e as pmap -- map of parents

In this example, the maps involving students use stmap namespace for all
of its operations and those using country_names use the country_names
namespace.  What might be faster in some situations can be and often is
slower in others.   The user (programmer) can choose which
implementation before, during and after writing his code using the maps
when the interface is reused over.

You can use the so called "machine" interface as with regex.e rather
than builtins.  I don't think we should add this to the default
namespace.  It is better to allow a user to include it or not include it.

Shawn

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