Re: Two ideas for the next Ada Standard

[kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)]

In article <dewar.841590835@schonberg>, dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> Incidentally I think random discussion of new ideas for Ada by email
> or in this newsgroup is largely wasted effort. Note that the first
> step in the Ada 9X effort was to collect revision suggestions in
> a very formal form, with a formal submission procedure.

I beg to differ, in that the resultant discussion provides good review
for some of us regarding _why_ things are in the current state.

> As I said before, I think this is premature anyway. People do not know
> Ada 95 well enough to make useful suggestions yet, so the discussion
> of new features will have a very high noise-to-signal ratio, with
> a lot of suggestions simply reflecting a lack of understanding of
> how Ada 95 can be used to solve the problems. At least 5 years needs

But some of us look to this newsgroup as a way of gaining that
understanding.  Experts like Robert will be condemned to spending
some of their time being bored by what is obvious to them :-).

I have no interest in promoting change (and I take particular exception
to what I had read as a suggestion to change some reserved words, thus
causing havoc with old programs), but I find the _discussion_ of interest.

By contrast, "which languages is best" topics bore me, although they
might be attractive if titles were changed more often to really show
the current content.  "Comparing method invocation Syntax of C and Ada"
provides better guidance than "Whichever you prefer (was Which Language
should I Choose (was Help for Ada Newcomers))".

Larry Kilgallen