iterators again

[Sean Kelly]

David B. Held wrote:
> 
> The problem with talking about features abstractly is that it's hard to 
> judge how necessary or compelling the feature is without the context of 
> real examples.  Motivating use cases give hints as to whether the 
> feature will only be used in obscure code, whether the feature could be 
> easily simulated with an alternative, or whether it's something that you 
> could imagine lots of other people running into.  So even though 
> academically, it is better to reason about things abstractly, compiler 
> design is not an academic pursuit; it's an engineering one.  And 
> engineers are better off seeing how a bridge sways in the wind or under 
> the feet of pedestrians than modeling it and theorizing about its 
> properties abstractly.  When they stick with the abstract, they are 
> often surprised by the details of reality.

Bah.  The Tacoma Narrows Bridge was a fluke ;-)


Sean