Discussion Thread: DIP 1042--ProtoObject--Community Review Round 1

[H. S. Teoh]

On Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 03:04:28AM +0000, Dom DiSc via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Friday, 14 January 2022 at 02:22:13 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
[...]
> > Majority? Hardly.  How should opCmp for std.stdio.File be defined?
>
> Oh, come on. Every browser need to order files. Of course there are
> endless different orders (by size, by name, by date, ...) but there IS
> an order  - and one need to be applied if you want to show the user a
> list. How else can you create a list other than creating an order?!?

A File does not have an inherent order; an *directory entry* may have
one of several possible orders imposed upon it.  You create a list by
defining an external ordering (by name, by date, by size, etc.). The
file itself is not inherently orderable, and therefore the ordering does
not belong in the class.


> > What does it even mean for one File to be "less than" another?
>
> It means it should be shown before the other one in a list.

Yes, it means "less than" **according to some externally-defined
order**. The ordering is external to the file, and not inherent to it.
This is why there are multiple possible orders.  Which of them should
File.opCmp use?


> And this also makes clear why this order is only partial, because
> maybe you have some filter. All files filtered out are non-comparable
> to ones within the list, because they are not shown, neither before
> nor after. And of course they are not equal.

Your mention of "filter" makes it clear that the order does not belong
in the File class; it belongs in another object that represents an entry
in a list of files. A filter is something you use to impose an order on
a collection of unordered objects; it's not something inherent to the
object itself. Therefore, std.stdio.File should not have an .opCmp
defined for it.


> >  What about a Socket?
> Any kind of ID?

Again, that's imposing an external order to something that inherently
doesn't have one. You can sort a list of sockets by last access time,
connection speed, lexicographic IP address, etc., but these are external
orders imposed upon the Socket, not an inherent order.


> > What about a Widget or Window?
> z-Order? - at least for windows that really matters.

Also an external order.


> > What about a ServerConnection?
> Priority?

Ditto.


> > What about an ObjectFactory?
> Nah, maybe for something too generic order doesn't matter so much, but
> at least for the majority of your examples there were meaningful
> orders, don't you think?

No, they are not inherently orderable, the orderings you mentions are
external orders imposed on them.  An external order should be defined by
an external predicate that compares two objects (this is why
std.algorithm.sort takes a predicate, btw), not in the .opCmp which
defines an *inherent* order.  You can order complex numbers by
magnitude, for example, but that does not mean they are inherently
orderable.


T

-- 
If creativity is stifled by rigid discipline, then it is not true creativity.