> > Well, the question is, where does this additional complexity come from. > In Java, it results in enormous quantities of boilerplate get/set > methods. In Scala, these are autocoded away. >
Boilerplate isn't complexity: It's inefficiency. I'll grant that it creates complexity-potential-energy via many increased space for complexity to hide. However, it's far more complex to eliminate boilerplate via dynamic mechanisms, such as interface dispatch or, heaven forbid, Ruby-style abuses such as method_missing. Simpler is to eliminate boilerplate by developing terser encodings in terms of values, and bringing computation to bear to interpret (or translate) those values. But I'll argue that avoiding the UAP isn't about complexity. It's about an intentional modeling of non-uniform access. Clojure data is built, constructively, out of lists, maps, sets, vectors, symbols, keywords, numbers, strings, etc. Any inductive data types, by the very nature of computation, are implemented in terms of co-inductive operations on codata types. You can't observe something in your computer without executing code to interpret some representation which models some abstraction. Any representation is built concretely out of the abstractions below it. By committing to :keyword style access, you're making a proclamation that you're operating on a "concrete" representation. If that concrete representation happens to be implemented abstractly (as it must be), you can override it (again with ILookup, etc). However, if you're going to override it, you damn well better provide value-like semantics. UAP grants you flexibility in changing an abstraction. However, it grants *too much* flexibility. It lets you change from a convincing emulation of a true mathematical value to a full-blown computation object. Making operations on data source-incompatible with operations on codata is a feature, not a bug. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
