[mercury-users] Modular data-abstraction and mostly unique modes.

[Fergus Henderson]

On 07-Jan-1998, Henk Vandecasteele <Henk.Vandecasteele at cs.kuleuven.ac.be> wrote:
> Anyway, maybe I'm missing some points, but I find the mode-system
> when doing more complicated things like above difficult to use.
> I for instance believe that instantiation information and uniqueness
> information is something different. And glueing them together makes 
> things unclear. 

Well, instantiation information and uniqueness are different, but they
are very closely linked -- so closely as to be pretty much
inextricable, I think.  For example, if a variable is not uniquely
referenced, then you cannot be sure that it is free -- because it may
have been bound via one of the other references.

If anyone has ideas about how to improve on the current design,
please share them!

> Before I forget, I think there is a typo in the manual.

Thanks.  I've fixed that.

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh at cs.mu.oz.au>   |  "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>   |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
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