[m-dev.] proposed breakup of std_util.m

[Julien Fischer]

On Thu, 23 Mar 2006, Ian MacLarty wrote:

> On 3/22/06, Julien Fischer <juliensf at cs.mu.oz.au> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 22 Mar 2006, Ian MacLarty wrote:
> >
> > > > That leaves std_util.m with:
> > > >
> > > >         * the unit type.
> > > >         * generic higher-order operations like compose and converse.
> > >
> > > If this is all that's left then perhaps 'misc' would be a better name
> > > than 'std_util' :-)  Perhaps these predicates should also be moved to
> > > their own modules?
> >
> > I don't like the name 'misc', I prefer 'std_util' (or perhaps even just
> > 'util').
> >
>
> I wasn't actually proposing to rename it to "misc", just that "misc"
> seems like a better name now.  I think they should be broken up into
> the two modules Ralph suggests.
>

Okay, I'll move those to new modules as well.

> > > I'm not opposed to the proposed changes, but I do feel we should,
> > > where possible, first pragma obsolete predicates we intend to remove
> > > for one numbered release and then remove them in the following
> > > release, not just suddenly remove them.
> >
> > For the first of the changes, moving solutions, that can be done.  For
> > the 0.13 release you'll need to module qualify calls to solutions in
> > modules that import both std_util and solutions.   That should be too
> > onerous though since calls to solutions are relatively rare.
> >
>
> But if you break what's left of std util as Ralph and I suggested then
> you won't ever have to import std_util and any of the new modules at
> the same time, so you can leave forwarding predicates in std_util (for
> all the predicates) until 0.14, at which point you can completely
> remove std_util.

Some of the procedures are being moved to builtin.m - it's always
imported, so the ambiguity problem will always exist for those modules
that make use of the std_util version.

> > For moving semidet_fail etc to builtin, it's really not worth the bother of
> > leaving forwarding predicates in place.
> >
>
> Why's it not worth it?  It's hardly any work and you won't any
> ambiguity problems if you break up what's left in std_util.

It's not worth the bother because in my experience calls to those
particular predicates are rarely module qualified anyway (and as such will
be unaffected by the change) and for the circumstances where they are, the
fix is trivial.

Julien.



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