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From: cs450a03@uc780.umd.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: RE: CHALLENGE: heterogeneous collections
Message-ID: <28MAR91.21053267@uc780.umd.edu>
Date: 28 Mar 91 21:05:32 GMT
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Darren New   >>
Me            >
>>If I have a bitmap, that's a homogenous collection, and I sure don't
>>carry type information along with each bit.
> 
>Well, comparing it to the example of buttons and subviews and
>scrollbars in a list, yes you said that.  Of course, there will be
>homogenous lists where you don't carry the types along. But that isn't
>what we were talking about.  We were talking about seemingly-hetro lists
>which you said were actually homogeneous.

Well, I guess I should pay attention, and find out what I was really
saying...  8-)  Or make yet another attempt to have what I think I'm
saying the same thing as other people understand me to be saying.

Maybe if I clarified my terms?

A list which was made by sticking a string of bits onto the end of a
string of characters would be hetrogenous.  Each bit and each
character would need a type tag.  The list's type in this case is not
"string of bits" and not "character string", but "hetrogenous".

The language I use is dynamically typed.  Each structure has size and
type information associated with it.  If I made a list which was made
by catenating a list of structures onto a list of bits, then each
element would have to have a type tag: either "structure" or "bit".
You might call that silly.  I call that hetrogenous.

I was very careful, each time I called a list of structures
homogenous, to point out that this was my point of view, and not an
attempt to classify all problems for all people.

I hope my statements are now understandable.

Raul Rockwell