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Parameterized sorts for LSL!?



	It's become clear that we need parameterized sorts for Larch/C++.
For example, we need to be able to distinguish between T values
and T objects, which we've been writing Obj_T.  But lumping these together
into an atomic LSL sort name has obvious disadvantages: especially that
when you rename T you have to remember to rename Obj_T also.  It gets worse,
but I think you get the idea.

	In Larch/C++ we plan to use an extended LSL that has parameterized
sorts, which could be translated into LSL.  But it would better if we could
use LSL proper, or at least some planned LSL syntax.

	I recall that David Guaspari had called for parameterized sort names
in LSL at the Larch Workshop.  I recall that he had some notation for them,
but I can't recall what (probably Obj[T]).  Are there plans for extending
LSL (and LP?) to have parameterized sorts?  If so I'd like to know the
likely syntax so that we can adopt it for our extension to LSL.

	In case anybody wants to do this, it would also be convenient to
have parameterized trait function names as well; for example equalAs[T].

	Gary Leavens

	229 Atanasoff Hall, Department of Computer Science
	Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011-1040 USA/leavens@cs.iastate.edu
	phone: (515) 294-1580 fax: (515) 294-0258 ftp site: ftp.cs.iastate.edu


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