Re: Ada 2005?

[Martin Krischik <martin@krischik.com>]

conradwt@runbox.com wrote:

> Hi, thanks for all your comments.  It's simply clearer to me as to what
> you're doing.  Now, in regards to your example, a struct in C and C++
> are very different. For example, a struct C cannot contain functions
> within its declaration.  Most programmers in the C++ community would
> use a class to create C++ object types that contain methods because the
> struct keyword is somewhat confusing when moving from C to C++ (i.e. do
> you mean a C struct or a C++ struct). 

That is indeed true. But somehow typical for C/C++. Originally designed to
be slim and lightweight they have become the total opposite.

The C99 standart if only a few pages short of Ada95 - But Ada has tasking
and object orientation included. And the C++ standart is +200 pages on
Ada95.

> Thus, I think that they should 
> not have extended 'struct' in regards to the C++ language.

YES! i.E. When has a struct/class a virtual functions table? In Ada it is
clear: when you us the keyword tagged. In C++: when there is at least on
virtual function - something difficult to dertemine.

But more difficult: When can you use dynamic_cast <> ;-)

In Ada: allways. even casting integers is dynamicly checked. I think here
was a great opertunity missed:

long x();

short Y = dynamic_cast <short> x();

(And Yes, I do have a template for this - its called numerc_cast <From, To>,
actually quite tricky to implement)

With Regards

Martin
-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
http://www.ada.krischik.com