RE: Multi- Occurrence Data Structure

..(Jacobus)..I never understood why this was not done like this when

MODS where introduced.

....
I have heard that MODS was meant as a step toward multi-dimensional
arrays &/or structures, a common request from programmers. So MODS would
be a temporary artifice to get to "Data Structure Arrays", useful in
their own right, on the way to yet bigger and better things. :)

Performance optimization is a good guiding principle, but code reuse and
maintainability have become much bigger factors than they were before.


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. Their new employer can teach them the THEE, THOU, TWIXT, and SHALT

opcodes. Their trainer may well be called William and have interesting
neck-wear. :-)

..ROTFL - brilliantly put Larry. With your permission I'll steal that

one!..

Good one, but THEE, THOU, and SHALT would actually be excellent examples
of what we could gain in clarity and accuracy by using array indexes,
semantics that make our intended meaning much more clear. Speaking of
other languages, most other languages do so distinguish...

Merriam-Webster and, I think, the Oxford Dictionary, such specific
2nd-person singular grammar went out of common use before the 12th or
13th century.

Accuracy and clarity, in fact, is precisely why the "Authorized Version"
Bible translators applied said usage, and may very well be why such
playwrites as Shakespeare also continued to apply such usage, centuries
after it lapsed from common usage. According to Merriam-Webster and, I
think, the Oxford Dictionary, it went out of use before the 12th or 13th
century.

So, "Thou shalt use data structure arrays instead of MODS" is a clear
mandate for each one us individually. :)


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(Ken Sims)..If you're talking about his example of comparing the

values of a subfield in two different occurrences, that is using
functionality availablle only to array structures, whereas I said
specifically ..>>>>If you're *NOT* using functionality that is available
only to array

data structures (emphasis added) >>so his example is irrelevant to

what I'm saying.

...
But then, for those who maintain the code later with "code corrections"
and enhancemens, in cases where changes involve adding such
functionality, it is much easier if the data structure is already
defined as a DS-array in the first place...


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---Alan