From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID
	autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
X-Google-Thread: 103376,d57302f2954365e1
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
From: kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)
Subject: Re: Question about base types
Date: 1997/02/10
Message-ID: <1997Feb10.073526.1@eisner>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 217783150
x-nntp-posting-host: eisner.decus.org
references: <mheaney-ya023280002601971414080001@news.ni.net>
 <E4oE3q.1tq@world.std.com> <dewar.855461358@merv>
 <mheaney-ya023680000902970112050001@news.ni.net>
x-nntp-posting-user: KILGALLEN
x-trace: 855578130/28125
organization: LJK Software
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-02-10T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <mheaney-ya023680000902970112050001@news.ni.net>, mheaney@ni.net (Matthew Heaney) writes:
> In article <dewar.855461358@merv>, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
> 
>>Yes, it is true that Ada 83 was a little confused in this area, but the
>>terminology chosen in Ada 95 is fundamentally confusing, and in fact I
>>note a couple of error messages in GNAT that are absolutely correct
>>but which always cause people trouble:
>>
>>   package x is .... -- oops forgot this hid "type" x 
>>
>>      q : x;
>>          |
>>     Error: subtype name expected
>>
>>Almost all programmers react to this message thinking, "why do I need a
>>subtype here, a type should be good enough"
> 
> Then we have to teach them that "types" don't have a name, only subtypes do.

And that is a shame, with regard popularization of Ada.

I am not claiming there is any better technical solution, but all who
encounter any situation where Ada is confusing to those experienced
in multiple other programming languages should realize that such a
situation is undesireable.

Larry Kilgallen