Re: Scheme style auto-resizing hashtable (fwd)

[Jay Glascoe <jglascoe@jay.giss.nasa.gov>]

YO, Maciej!  I got your "set!" right here pal!

On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:

> 
> jglascoe@jay.giss.nasa.gov writes:
> > 
> > the big three basic operations:
> > 
> >         dictionary-insert!
> >         dictionary-lookup
> >         dictionary-remove!
> > 
> 
> In my opition, consistency is even more important than
> meaningfulness. Hence, these should be renamed to `dictionary-set!',
> `dictionary-ref' and `dictionary-delete!' respectively.


Imagine that we're choosing names for generic methods on collection data
structures...  now, what's wrong with this picture:

(set! vector 0 "foo")
(set! vector 0)      ;; oops, forgot the third argument, I'm screwed now!

or even worse:

(set! btree "fiz")

what happens?  what does it mean?


On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
>
> * `vector-set!' is entirely different from plain old `set!' because it
> modifies a vector, not a variable, and I don't see why this is
> confusing at all...

<snip>

> The reason these are preferable to insert!/lookup/remove! is because
> they are parallel with the operations on Scheme basic types, as
> defined in R5RS, a standards document that is a lot harder to change
> than random data structure implementations. For that matter, one could
> make up similar arguments against insert!/lookup/remove!, e.g.:

Too bad they weren't thinking of generic functions when they dreamed up
the dual meanings of "set!".


> 
>  - Maciej
> 
> 

	Jay Glascoe
	jglascoe@jay.giss.nasa.gov