[Grace-core] collections interface for new classes

[Kim Bruce]

I haven’t jumped in here because I generally don’t feel very strongly about the differences.  Obviously Andrew has the most experience with it.
> On Dec 12, 2015, at 3:41 AM, James Noble <kjx at ecs.vuw.ac.nz> wrote:
> 
> Doing due diligence through Andrew’s & Kim’s code for varargs methods:
> 
> * collections has a bunch, mostly around add & remove (they’re in parallel)
> I think the full suite is:
> 
>> add(*x) 
>> addAll(elements) 
>> addAllFirst(l) 
>> addFirst(*l) 
>> addLast(*x)
> 
> there seem to be two options here: 
> 
> 1. take the varargs versions back to single elements,
> leave the “All” versions taking collections
> 
>> c.add “x”
>> c.addFirst “x” 
>> c.addLast “x” 
>> 
>> c.addAll [ “x”, “y” ] 
>> c.addAllFirst [ “x”, “y” ] 

I have a slight preference for 1 over 2 as it seems a bit painful to add [] where they aren’t really needed.
> 
> 2. dump the single element versions, do everything with collections,
> everyone has to lift objects into collections
> 
>> c.add [ “x” ] 
>> c.addFirst [ “x” ]
>> c.addLast [ “x” ]
> 
> “contains” would term into “subset” I guess;
> 
> * there are also a couple of other methods in the prelude
> 
>> StandardPrelude.grace:method max(a, b, *xs) {
>> StandardPrelude.grace:method min(a, b, *xs) {
> 
> I presume these just lose the varargs argument;
> If it’s a big problem, we could put min & max into the collections interfaces.

I’d keep the two argument versions of this, and then add them into the collections interfaces for sequences or lists

> 
> * objectdraw has precisely two varargs methods for creating selection boxes
> 
>> objectdraw.grace:  factory method options (*options: String) labeled (label': String) -> Choice {
>> objectdraw.grace:  factory method options(*optStrings: String) -> Choice {
> 
> * Kim’s book doesn’t declare varargs methods at all and has two mentions in the text
> (one for creating selection boxes, one for lists)
> 
> ch10-gui/GUI.tex:three options, but we could just as easily had 6 or more.\footnote{We say that this method has \lstinline{varargs}.
> ch13-arrays/create.tex:This is our first example of the use of ``varargs'' in Grace.  It simply means that

It seems reasonable to use these with the list notation.

> 
> * amg (Andrew’s minigrace) has a few methods in the AST and parser
> 
> ast.grace:    method new(*values) scope(s) {
> ast.grace:    factory method new(*values) {
> ast.grace:    factory method new(*values) {
> parser.grace:method findNextValidToken(*validFollowTokens) {
> 
> J
> 
> PS andrew - which is the best current version of collections to work on? 
> 
> PPS if we’re allowed “min” and “max” surely we are allowed “seq” as well?
> 
> PPPS if we add “min” and “max” into collections, there’s average, and sum, and … 
>  although here I think I’d be very happy to have a trait that mixed this in to the collections library elsewhere
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