pathnames

[BRIAN SPILSBURY]

> If you want the latest version you should have to ask the
> registry. (Please-give-me-a-reference-to-the-latest-version-of
> "Treasure Island"). The latest version is an abstract notion, and
> it is not appropriate to use a direct reference.
> 
> Destructive anything, is in general a bad idea.

Imho, destructive modification is only bad if it changes
identity. Chapter X is still chapter X, it just has different
text, and knows about a different previous incarnation.

Think about objects, they're places where destructive modification
is what makes them make sense, as contained dumping grounds for
side-effects.

Here a nicer solution might be a mostly transparent wrapper object
which just bounces messages on to the latest chapter by default.

But the please-give-me-a-reference-to-the-latest-version-of-treasure
island opens you up for race conditions, and really makes it like
a file-system request. I was hoping to get away from the fs level,
rather than replacing (open "file") with (open #Rfile) :)

Just imho.

Brian