Re: [boost] Re: Adding Loki to Boost (reprise)

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-04-11 06:49:47

From: "David Abrahams" <david.abrahams_at_[hidden]>
> From: "Peter Dimov" <pdimov_at_[hidden]>
> > Why does the draft documentation feature a "mutating algorithms"
> section
> > then?
>
> That's the basis of a conceptual disagreement between Aleksey and
> myself. There's obviously no such thing as a mutating algorithm at
> compile-time, but Aleksey thinks (I hope he won't mind the paraphrase)
> that using the term "mutating" helps people to understand algorithms
> which return a modified version of their input sequence. My feeling was
> that it just made things more confusing.

FWIW, I agree with you. "Mutating" algorithms are impossible in a pure
functional language. Pretending that they are will confuse both STL users
and FP users equally well.

> > There wasn't a fold() last time I looked. ;-)
>
> Well, Vesa's FP arguments did in fact have quite an impact.

:-)

MPL suffers from the usual syndrome (no offense meant.) People see what's
wrong with it, express their opinions, nothing changes for six months, then
suddenly everything is fixed. I guess we can't speed up evolution.