Re: Ada Popularity: Comparison of Ada/Charles with C++ STL (and Perl)

[Matthew Heaney <matthewjheaney@earthlink.net>]

Brian May <bam@snoopy.apana.org.au> writes:

> The following code (or something like it), I believe (not tested),
> should reduce the line count (and complexity) of the above:
> 
> procedure Insert (Word : String) is 
>    I : Wordcount_Maps.Iterator_Type; 
>    B : Boolean; 
>   
> begin -- Insert 
>    Insert (Map, To_Lower (Word), 0, I, B); 
>    Replace_Element(I, Element(I) + 1);
> end Insert;

Yes, that's true, but the point of the original example was to show how
to modify the element in-place, as you do for C++.  

Clearly, in the case of an object of type Integer, you don't really need
to modify the object in place, and your solution above is perfectly
adequate (and simpler too).

Support for in-place modification is really provided for composition of
containers.  So for example, if you have a container whose elements are
another container, then you need in-place modification to manipulate the
(container) element.

-Matt