always new instance?

Cagdas Ozgenc co19@cornell.edu
Tue, 2 Oct 2001 13:09:28 +0300


Hi,

Do I ALWAYS need to create a new instance if I want to modify the state of
an instance? For example, if I design an index for a simple database with an
recursive algebric Tree type, do I need to recreate the whole Tree if I
insert or remove an element? How can I improve performance, what are common
idioms in these situations?

Thanks