Arrays vs Lists

[Dar Scott]

On Thursday, December 5, 2002, at 10:12 AM, miscdas at boxfrog.com wrote:

>> As for Dar's question about a list. IME, a list is an ordered 
>> delimited groups of words or phrases. The delimiter is usually, but 
>> not always a comma. I suspect that is not correct when you consider 
>> programming in general. But having spent a lot of time in Hypercard. 
>> That is what I consider one.  You can delimit with anything, just be 
>> sure it doesn't pop up in you list items.
>
> Why restrict your definition to an ORDERED group of "things"? Granted 
> that intuitively, ordering renders the list more useful. But should it 
> be a requirement?

I think in general in programming I would think _ordered_ is a 
requirement for "list".  Also, in programming the "distance" or ease of 
access for data in the middle or end may not be as low as that for the 
front.  Perhaps the word "sequence" would have less of that stigma.

A more general term that would not include order might be a collection.

I wasn't sure whether Revolutionaries used "list" for a string that 
separated inclosed data with delimiters, that with delimiters being 
lineFeeds specifically, or in the more general sense.  I am tinkering 
with my library for packing up values into a sequence that I have called 
a list (slightly related to lists in functional lisp but without data 
sharing).  I'm thinking about changing the name of these things to 
something else such as bundle so as to not cause confusion should my 
library escape.

Dar Scott