Re: [Axiom-developer] Spad and its object model

[Stephen Wilson]

Gabriel Dos Reis <address@hidden> writes:

> On Mon, 11 Jun 2007, Stephen Wilson wrote:
> 
> | Gabriel Dos Reis <address@hidden> writes:
> | > | If the vtable can be interrogated with a variety of keys, allowing
> | > | useful mapping of elements, I dont see how a hash is any more
> | > | flexible.  Perhaps you could provide an example?
> | > 
> | > Did I say "more flexible"?
> | > 
> | > When you have an array and you index it with value 2, what does "2"
> | > means? 
> | 
> | As I said, you are not limited to using an integer.  You could use
> | any key which makes sense.
> 
> In that case, can you remind me of your main objection to what I 
> originally suggested?

My objection was that the current implementation allows interrorgation
based not only on integer keys, but also w.r.t operation names.
Further functionality could be added to allow other indexing schemes
_without_ changing the underlying representation.

Global change to a hash would certainly cost us in execution time.  I
have not yet seen anything convincing me that a change is essential.

Steve