std.xml should just go

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2011-02-04 20:33, Walter Bright wrote:
> so wrote:
>> It doesn't matter what signature you use for the function, compiler is
>> aware and will output an error when you do the opposite of the
>> signature. If this is the case, why do we need that signature?
>
>
> Examine the API of a function in a library. It says it doesn't modify
> anything reachable through its arguments, but is that true? How would
> you know? And how would you know if the API doc doesn't say?
>
> You'd fall back to const by convention, and that is not reliable and
> does not scale.

This is quite interesting, I generally agree with this but on the other 
hand Ruby on Rails is basically built on conventions, it works out very 
well and I love it. For example:

The class "FooBar" matches the table "foo_bars".

> You have to manually go through an entire hierarchy of
> function calls to figure out if one might change a member of the data
> structure, and then after a few maintenance cycles, you have to do that
> all over again.
>
> Or not, and just hope for the best (which is what happens in practice).
>
> The "why", then, is that guarantees are better than hope.


-- 
/Jacob Carlborg