Re: Proposal: Auto-allocation of Indefinite Objects

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote in message 
news:rgr267$1o1n$1@gioia.aioe.org...
> No, from the abstraction point of view they do not. They indeed abstract 
> the memory allocation aspect, but they do that at the cost of *everything* 
> else. Unbounded_String is no string anymore. Container is neither array 
> nor record type. Unbounded_String must be converted forth and back. For 
> containers I must use ugly hacks like iterators to make them resemble 
> arrays and records introducing whole levels of complexity to fight through 
> every time the compiler or I miss something.
>
> In most cases I prefer to keep a clear array or record interface at the 
> expense of manual memory management.
>
>> There's no free lunch.
>
> I think with a better type system there could be a whole banquet. (:-))

Maybe. but IMHO a better type system would get rid of arrays and strings 
altogether and only have containers/records of various sorts. The complexity 
of having both solving the same problems (not very well in the case of 
arrays/strings) doesn't buy much. I suspect that a user-defined "." as 
you've proposed elsewhere would eliminate most of the rest of the problems 
(and unify everything even further).

                                  Randy.