Re: [Rails-devel] Rails2.0: Portfolios, Ownable and Owner

[Erik V. <eri...@xs...>]

Stefan,

I do not want to have a big argument over these matters, that's not worth
it, but I'm trying to understand the reasoning behind your 'natural order',
and I cannot find it.

> You can call this reverted, but your proposal is symmetric:
> Take the indexInCompany as the default Comparator and create the Player
> portfolios with the a Comparator based on the order of president and
> certificate type.
> 
> As soon as you want support two (or more) different sortings you need one
> (or more) "non-natural" Comparator(s).

But what is then the use case of your 'natural order'? 

Let's look at the most obvious use cases:

1. Initial purchase from IPO. Fixed order, as configured. This usage calls
for a List.

2. Purchase from Pool or Treasury. In most cases, just one share can be
bought, so all you need is a single (any) share per share size. Any ordering
can handle this, though a Map per share type (size) would help, or a Set per
share type. Is that what you do? Current code just iterates over all shares,
and any iterable collection type can handle this equally well, though a List
looks most efficient. Order doesn't matter at all.

3. Finding which and how many shares can be sold. Here you need counts of
each share type (size). Basically what I said for use case 2 applies here
too.

4. Add up share worth. Again, any iterable collection can handle this.

Nowhere I can find any reason to have such a thing as your 'natural order'.
So I'm curious what use case you think would benefit from such an order.  I
must be missing some point...
(Of course it's possible that you have explained it in the past perfectly
well, and then I apologize for having forgotten it).

Erik.