Stewart Gordon <smjg_1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
On 13/10/2010 21:11, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
<snip>
No, what is suggested is that we build the complexity guarantees into
the interface. For example, if you had a List interface, and it could
only guarantee O(n) performance for get, you'd call it e.g. slowGet(),
to signify it's a slow operation, and define get to signify a fast
operation. Similarly, 'in' is defined to be fast, so it has no business
being a function on an array.
<snip>
And make get assert(false) if a fast get isn't implementable?
No. That list would not be able to implement the List interface.
I think this is bug-prone - somebody may use it forgetting that it won't
work on all List implementations, and then the algorithm will refuse at
runtime to work at all rather than degrading gracefully to something
that does.
--
Simen
