You may want to distinguish between sequential versus random access, if your language supports both.
If there is no such need in a given language, then the implementation can parse them to the same data structure. Why not meet the general case ? What's the cost ? You are not doing this processing by hand :) The too frequent problem in all these tools (XML, YAML, JSON, ...) is to have designed them with a narrow scope from the start. We ended up with an array of tools with each having flaws because every opened door was closed with statements like "we will never need this, we cannot foresee why we would like to do this, ...". Having data as the main scope may be too narrow. If I send a custom literal that will eventually is turned into a factory call, I am sending more than just data. I may send stuff that alter the behavior if the factory fn is this good design ? Maybe yes, maybe not. But who are we to judge ? Let's keep Rich think out of the box instead of trying to restrict him to the same sandbox as the other tools above. Luc P. > (sorry for top-posting) > > Languages have random access / sequential data structures. > > Sure. Languages. This is a data format, not a language. Why should I not > inflate a edn-list into a vector in my language? What if I don't have a > random access thing handy (because, e.g., I only have trees/tables, as e.g. > tcl where arrays are actually hashtables with integer keys)? Please do read > my post again. I'm aware of the clojure link etc. etc. etc. We're talking > about a data format here. > > Regards, > -Martin > > ________________________________________ > From: clojure@googlegroups.com [clojure@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Sean > Corfield [seancorfi...@gmail.com] > Sentd: Friday, September 07, 2012 18:44 > To: clojure@googlegroups.com > Subject: Re: edn > > On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 8:26 PM, Weber, Martin S <martin.we...@nist.gov> wrote: > > The question that's left for me is: why vectors and lists? I mean, from a > > data format perspective, and a non-clojure implementor, I'm not sure the > > distinction makes sense. After all for the _data format_, in its serialized > > form, the vector will not be a random access structure. It has to be > > deserialized, and access to an element will have linear time complexity. > > Again, I understand its relevance from the clojure perspective. Is this > > just "too important" for edn's current "implementor", clojure ? > > I think it's a useful hint to allow sequences of data that can be > inflated into data structures supporting random access in constant > time vs those that don't. Many languages have both list-like > collections AND array-like collections. > -- > Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN > An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/ > World Singles, LLC. -- http://worldsingles.com/ > > "Perfection is the enemy of the good." > -- Gustave Flaubert, French realist novelist (1821-1880) > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Clojure" group. > To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com > Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your > first post. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Clojure" group. > To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com > Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your > first post. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en > -- Softaddicts<lprefonta...@softaddicts.ca> sent by ibisMail from my ipad! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
