On 20/07/2010 04:27, PercentEwe wrote:
As far as anyone not coming from C++ is concerned, ranges == iterators.
Actually, thanks for pointing that out. It took me a while to figure that out, as it wasn't immediately clear.
Sure, some D ranges also offer random access and are generally more powerful and better abstracted than iterators in other languages, but the basic functionality is still iterating/traversing and doing something on the current element.
Also, when I think of "range" I think of the mathematical range/interval, which have a few aspects that don't match with D ranges: * they always have a length, it is "always" known, and "available immediatly", so to speak... * real ranges (as in real numbers) don't have a set of discrete elements, but rather a infinite set of contiguous elements. (except for the degenerate cases of course)
Yeah, this is a very minor issue, and can be just my personal bias. But its worth to keep in mind if ever you want to explain D ranges to a D newbie who is familiar with iterators in languages other than C/C++.
-- Bruno Medeiros - Software Engineer
