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<blockquote type="cite" class="">On Feb 4, 2016, at 11:25 , Steve Haflich <<a href="mailto:shaflich@gmail.com" class="">shaflich@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br class="">
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Does it work for plists? For alists?<br class="">
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<div class="">Yes it does because you are wrapping the plists and the alist.</div>
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<div class="">Sorry for the pointy response :) But I had anticipated the question and yes, I presume that lists and plists will be wrapped as in</div>
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<div class=""><font face="Courier New" class="">(<reference-operator> (plist <your plist>) 'indicator)</font></div>
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<div class="">Otherwise you are getting into nasty syntax with intermingling of indexing and other parameters to discriminate the “view” of the data. In other words I want this signature</div>
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<div class=""><font face="Courier New" class="">(function (object index1 &rest more indexes) (values t boolean))</font></div>
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<div class="">with the caveat that an array could have a <font face="Courier New" class="">
index1</font> of <font face="Courier New" class="">NIL</font> to accommodate</div>
<div class=""><font face="Courier New" class="">(aref (make-array () :initial-element 42))</font>.</div>
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<blockquote type="cite" class="">Can the user write methods to add his own structures/classes/constructs to the set understood by REF?<br class="">
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More seriously, this function seems to me to be an over generalization, distorting CL style. Built into the numerous built-in ways of supporting data in CL are assumptions about the efficiency and scaling of the various kinds. Although efficiency might not
matter for particular low-bandwidth operations, in other places it will certainly matter. That's obvious. But even more important is that use of an over-generalized reference operator makes the code harder to read and understand. If I see an aref, I know
I'm looking at an array, understand something about the expected performance, and know what to look for elsewhere in a huge module to examine where this array is constructed and modified.<br class="">
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For me, traditional CL operators have a nice, time-tested balance between generality and specificity.<br class="">
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<div class="">This are all very valid points, but they are not the issue :) I have not given any context, but the reference operator will not be a CL-level operator. I am re-doing stuff in a DSL built upon CL, where all the CL operators will be usable, but
where the overall goal is to offer other users what they may be used to.</div>
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<div class="">Cheers</div>
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<div class="">MA</div>
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<div class="">--<br class="">
Marco Antoniotti, Associate Professor<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>tel.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>+39 - 02 64 48 79 01<br class="">
DISCo, Università Milano Bicocca U14 2043<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span><a href="http://bimib.disco.unimib.it" class="">http://bimib.disco.unimib.it</a><br class="">
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I-20126 Milan (MI) ITALY<br class="">
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Please check: http://cdac.lakecomoschool.org<br class="">
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