Talk:Data-directed programming

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About the lack of links to this page, isn't data-directed programming the same as data driven programming? The expresion "data driven" seems more frequent. --Terdargil 23:37, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

This article (or stub) needs complete rewriting.

Data-directed programming, as mentioned in SICP, is a _technique_, not nearly general enough to be called a _paradigm_. It is mentioned as a technique in the text itself (section 2.4.3: "...This is provided by the programming technique known as data-directed programming...", "...Data-directed programming is the technique of designing programs to work with such a table directly").

The authors demonstrate its use as a method of implementing generic operators (otherwise called `overloaded operators'). It basically consists of using an n-keys, single value table, the keys of which represent the argument types of a procedure, and the value representing the version of the operator (procedure) that handles the corresponding set of argument types.

It's called `data-directed', I suppose, because the type of the data determines the procedure to apply: the data has influence on control branching.

Martinlmichaud 19:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)