[erlang-questions] Maps branch and disclaimers

[Björn-Egil Dahlberg]

On 2013-10-30 15:03, Chris King wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Oct 2013 09:51:27 -0400, Björn-Egil Dahlberg 
> <egil@REDACTED> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>     I don't get this use case.  Why do you need syntax support for a
>>     key-value map where you don't know a priori what the keys and
>>     values are?  Why don't dict() and friends suffice?
>>
>>     To me this is akin to iterating through a record/tuple.
>
>     Actually these functions are needed, at least one is needed
>     internally, I think.
>
>     It should be covered in comprehensions with Maps generators. Maps
>     generators needs next(Key, Map).
>
>       But for small Maps and record like behaviour they are not needed. =)
>
>
> Mm, I think I disagree about the need for map-generators as well. 
>  Couldn't that be equally well served by implementing a qlc dict() source?

What I meant was it needs a stepping structure internally. I don't think 
next(K,M) would suffice here though, need to think about it a bit more. 
All the comprehensions, generators, next, prev, tree structures and 
variables in keys goes hand in hand and those are a bit down the road. 
Don't fret about it =)

>
> Well I shouldn't complain too much.  Richard O'Keefe and I both argued 
> strenuously against conflating heterogeneous (record-like) and 
> homogeneous (dict-like) maps months ago but I guess that ship has sailed.

Yep.

>
> I will just avoid using the dict-like features of these maps in my 
> code, and hope that I am not forced to do so by the standard library 
> or by popular applications.

ofc.

>
> BTW, is there a plan for a type notation for these new maps, or for 
> how to get Dialyzer to usefully type-check them?

Yes. The type notation is the same as with other terms. How well 
Dialyzer would be able to handle it is a different matter. I plan to 
make them really stupid at first, meaning opaque map(). Later 
incarnations of dialyzer could be increasingly smarter.

// Björn-Egil
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/attachments/20131030/9c99097e/attachment.htm>