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Date: Wed, 03 Jul 91 10:11:22 -0400
From: munck@STARS.Reston.Unisys.COM
Subject: Re: USE clauses (was: c++ vs ada results)
Message-ID: <1433.678550282@osprey>
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In Volume 91:Issue 201, netcomsv!jls@decwrl.dec.com (Jim Showalter) says

>>While we are on this subject, Booch says that he rarely uses USE clauses,
>>because they "pollute the name space". I routinely use USE, and find that 
>>it makes the code more readable. Using qualified names all the time is a
>>pain in the neck.
>
>The style around Rational is to not use use clauses except in very limited
>circumstances (such as within a particular small declarative region). Yes,
>it requires more typing ...

The last fair-sized program I wrote, I jury-rigged a window with a
diagram of the entire data structure in it, such that I could
mouse-select any item in the structure and have its fully-qualified name
inserted into the editor text in the other window. Also had a menu of
statement skeletons down one side, with the result that I was doing most
of the "typing" with mouse picks. Very handy, _very_ fast, despite the
considerable limitations and bugs of my quick-and-filthy support.

A product-grade tool of this nature, based perhaps on the STARS
public-domain ACE IRIS/DIANA parser/interpreter and X-windows support and
with GOOD facilities for manipulating existing code as well as producing
new code ("reuse"), could be one heck of a productivity-enhancer.

It's been shown that some programmers, say 10%, are as much as ten times
as productive as the majority. Why don't we figure out how to locate
them, pay them enough so that they don't have to give up programming and
become managers, and give them sophisticated, exotic tools like this
one?  They might well produce twice the software at 1/5th the cost that
our current "Chinese Army" approach does now, with less bugs. It seems to
me that Rational tried to move down this path by providing the good
tools, but they are largely "pearls before swine."

(As Lenny Bruce used to say: "Is there anyone I've forgotten to insult?")

Bob Munck, NOT speaking for STARS