Re: It Hurts When I Do This

On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 09:03:06 -0700, GaryScott wrote:

>
http://softwareblogs.intel.com/2008/03/31/doctor-it-hurts-when-i-do-this/
> 
> But we NEED a syntax that means "the entire array".  Code should be
> self do***enting.  Of course, I typically just name arrays so that
> it's clear that it is an array (aArray, bArray, cArray), but it is
> fairly natural to want to specify a wildcard indicating whole array
> since it improves interpretability.  It is available in other
> languages that I've used in the past.

I read the article to mean that Steve *is* happy using <array name> to
indicate the whole array. If modifying the code you would check its
declaration, at some point; if just reading it, the atomic use of <array
name> is sufficient. Steve wrote that there was an alternate 'wildcard',
using (:), but that this usually hindered optimisation - and in the
specific example in his article, prevented the user from getting the
result wanted. Adding a new construct for such a specific operation -
retrieving the whole array - when there are already two mechanisms for
doing this - , on the grounds that this would 'clarify' the array
retrieval, seems an uncessary burden.