[m-dev.] Re: [m-rev.] field syntax (was: smart recompilation)

[Simon Taylor]

On 06-Jul-2001, Fergus Henderson <fjh at cs.mu.OZ.AU> wrote:
> On 06-Jul-2001, Peter Schachte <schachte at cs.mu.OZ.AU> wrote:
> > So let me ask you to clarify a few examples:
> > 
> > If I have a 2-space position type with x and y fields, are r and theta
> > "field-like"?  And what if my application uses r and theta so often I decide
> > to switch to a polar representation?
> > 
> > Is the length of a string "field-like"?  It may or may not be explicitly
> > stored.  Is an individual character in the string "field-like?"  How about a
> > substring? 
> 
> I'd answer "yes" to all of the above.
> 
> One criterion which helps to distinguish between things which are field-like
> and things which are not is that for field-like things, it almost always
> makes sense to talk about setting the field, and setting a field of an
> object to a given value results in a single new object.
> That is definitely true for all of the above, but not true for `toupper'.

How is the length of a string settable?

Simon.
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