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From: "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Map iteration and modification
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2024 21:22:00 -0600
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"Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote in message 
news:umv8rg$2b4on$1@dont-email.me...
...
> It is same benefit Ada arrays have over C's T* pointers and arithmetic of. 
> Cursor is merely a fat pointer.

A cursor is an abstract reference. It *might* be implemented with a pointer 
or with an array index. Indeed, the bounded containers pretty much have to 
be implemented with an underlying array.

It would be nice if there was some terminology for abstract references that 
hadn't been stolen by some programming language. Terms like "pointer" and 
"access" and "reference" all imply an implementation strategy. That's not 
relevant most of the time, and many programming language design mistakes 
follow from that. (Anonymous access types come to mind).

               Randy.