AW: Convenient array & hash iterators & accessors

Hi, Erik,

Von: Erik Huelsmann [mailto:ehuels_at_gmail.com]
 
>> It would make sense to design type-safe, light-weight container and
>> iterator template wrappers around the APR structures if we decided to
>> write code in C++. Since we're not, "explicit is better than
>> implicit".

> I understand the point. I note that "explicit" is not a binary quality: there are degrees of it.

> I suppose I want to be writing in a higher level language. Maybe I should just go ahead and really do so.

> Exactly. There's been talk about doing so for much too long without action (other than attempts - including my own) to find a way to "upgrade" C to something less verbose and more expressive.

> I've been long thinking that there are specific areas which are more-or-less stand-alone, might be a good place to start this strategy. One place like that might qualify is the piece of code that deduces the eligeable revisions in merge tracking. That's the code I'm thinking you're now working in?

> What kind of language were you thinking about? One of the languages that came to mind is 'lua' which seems to have a pretty strong focus on being integratable with C code. For lua there are also tools to embed the compiled bytecode in a C library so the entire higherlevel language can be fully encapsulated inside our libraries.

As far as I can see, Lua is dynamically typed, thus not buying us too much in way of compile time type-safety.

We just get exceptions instead of SegV - we can handle them, but we still have the problem of missing test coverage in not-so-common code pathes.

Thus, I tend to prefer _more_ compile time type safety instead of less compared to where we are now (C).

Best regards

Markus Schaber

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