Elements of Programming

Afterword

We recap the main themes of the book: regularity, concepts, algorithms and their interfaces, programming techniques, and meanings of pointers. For each theme, we also discuss its particular limitations.

Regularity

Regular types define copy construction and assignment in terms of equality. Regular functions return equal results when applied to equal arguments. For example, regularity of transformations allowed us to define and reason about algorithms for analyzing orbits. Regularity was in fact relied on throughout the book by ordering relations, the successor function for forward iterators, and many others.

When we work with built-in types, we usually treat the complexity of equality, copying, and assignment as constant. When we deal ...