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From: Aleksey Gurtovoy (agurtovoy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-07-29 21:07:58


Peter Dimov wrote:
> > To tie this in with what Mat said about denoting
> > something's role, or function. For "metafunction class",
> > "metafunction" tells about its role - it's a metafunction
> > (compile-time function), and "class" tells about its
> > form. Kevlin Henney would love this one, with his "Function
> > follows form" articles. :)
>
> No, this analogy isn't good, either. We are creating a new
> terminology from scratch. "Metafunction" means a class template
> with a nested type named 'type.'

Yep, at least it is now, see below.

> Since we aren't calling it "metafunction class template" to reflect
> the form,

Actually, we were, or at least I was. My original terminology preferences
were to use "metafunction" as a general term denoting _any_ invocable
compile-time entity, and to use "metafunction class template" and
"metafunction class" when I was talking about the particular form of
metafunctions. "class template" was dropped later on.

> the "other" form should have an abstract name as well for
> consistency reasons.

Aleksey


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