Re: [boost] FC++ review

From: Brian McNamara (lorgon_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-03-01 18:10:36

On Mon, Mar 01, 2004 at 02:56:38PM -0700, Dave Gomboc wrote:
> I put about a day into looking at FC++ (reading the papers, trying to

Thanks for taking the time, and thanks for your comments.

A couple quick replies:

> "Functor" has for years been commonly used to mean "function object" (in
> addition to its original meaning from category theory).
> [http://www.dre.vanderbilt.edu/~bala/c++-function-objects.pdf;
> http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl/functors.html;
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functor].  Have no referees of your
> academic publications brought this up?  There is no need to name anew
> a common concept: therefore, s/functoid/functor globally!

I don't recall this comment coming up from referees of the
publications.  Note that, to the FP community, "functor" means
something completely different from what it means in C++.

In any case, "functoids" as described in those papers were a "new
concept" requiring a new name.  A "functoid" was a "functor" that also
supported polymorphic return-type deduction.

This distinction is now becoming dated, though.  In any case, the
overall point here (that the Boost documents on FC++ need to be
tailored to a C++ audience, rather than an FP audience) is taken.  

> [various stuff about names/naming elided]

I have no objections to renaming various entities in the library, and
have received a number of good suggestions from many of you these past
two weeks.  If the library is accepted, I'll try to consolidate the
suggestions and make the most commonly-requested changes.

-- 
-Brian McNamara (lorgon_at_[hidden])