From tim@menzies.com  Thu May 11 23:53:57 2000
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Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 18:13:55 -0400
From: Tim Menzies <tim@menzies.com>
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Organization: Bondi Beach Uni. Oz
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To: Paul Singleton <p.singleton@keele.ac.uk>
CC: prolog@swi.psy.uva.nl
Subject: Re: String Representation
References: <Pine.LNX.3.91.1000511004849.17382B-100000@pdev.inet.co.za> <00051109522700.25756@gollem> <391AF7A6.E354E5AB@keele.ac.uk>
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string being phased out?

er... have i got this? atoms are 'enclosed in single quotes' while
"strings are in double rabbit ears are represented as lists of
small-ints"

i thought strings were a neat trick for lots of things e.g.

** don't write string processing predicates. instead, implement all your
"string" manaipulations using general purpose list predicates

** don't pollute the symbol table with silly atoms (strings are just
small ints). this is  very useful if you are (e.g.) sniffing a large
data source

or am i missing something?

Paul Singleton wrote:
> 
> Jan Wielemaker wrote:
> 
> > ...
> > In general, I would not use strings very often these days.
> 
> Is there any good case for using them at all?
> 
> Should I feel guilty in making no provision for them in my Java and
> ODBC interfaces?
> 
> Do you envisage "pulling the plug" on them within a few years?
> 
> Paul Singleton
> 
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