Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!hsdndev!cmcl2!kramden.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd
From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: The search for heterogeneous lists is still on!
Message-ID: <11132:Apr319:34:0291@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 3 Apr 91 19:34:02 GMT
References: <167:Mar3121:32:0891@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <49605@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Organization: IR
Lines: 20

In article <49605@nigel.ee.udel.edu> new@ee.udel.edu (Darren New) writes:
> In article <167:Mar3121:32:0891@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
> >Does anyone have an example of a heterogeneous list---something beyond
> >unions and callback functions---used in a real program?
> What about Pascal's WRITELN function?  Please separate what the language
> defines from the compiler's implementation of that functionality.

I have never read the Pascal language definition. As far as I know,
writeln can only take values of certain types, as defined beforehand by
the implementation.

  [ further comments ]

So you agree that C++, which provides the union types and callback
functions (a.k.a. objects) with a reasonable syntax, suffices for
everything you can think of to do with heterogeneous lists? In other
words, you agree that people don't use heterogeneous lists except in
ways handled by a *statically* typed language?

---Dan