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=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,TO_NO_BRKTS_FROM_MSSP autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,7ee10ec601726fbf X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-10-12 11:36:12 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed1.uncensored-news.com!propagator-la!news-in-la.newsfeeds.com!news-in.superfeed.net!newsranger.com!www.newsranger.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada From: Ted Dennison References: <3BC30674.BA88AAB6@brighton.ac.uk> <9pvv3t$ves$1@news.huji.ac.il> <3BC5D730.DA950CC7@boeing.com> <9q4pa7$1ad$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <3BC6ACC8.23EF21BC@free.fr> <3BC71F54.1FFE78FA@boeing.com> Subject: Re: why not Message-ID: <1KGx7.26476$ev2.35117@www.newsranger.com> X-Abuse-Info: When contacting newsranger.com regarding abuse please X-Abuse-Info: forward the entire news article including headers or X-Abuse-Info: else we will not be able to process your request X-Complaints-To: abuse@newsranger.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 14:35:41 EDT Organization: http://www.newsranger.com Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 18:35:41 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:14428 Date: 2001-10-12T18:35:41+00:00 List-Id: In article <3BC71F54.1FFE78FA@boeing.com>, Jeffrey Carter says... > >This is an excellent argument *against* the BCs. Maybe in C++ the >implicit instantiation alleviates this, or maybe C++ people are In C++ it look like this problem is largely eliminated by the fact that most of the templates have lots of sensible default paramters. It also appears that they have some kind of type content-equivalence thingy going on where templates are concerned, where Ada is forced to use child packages or package parameters to ensure that types match up. But I'm still playing around with C++ templates and haven't quite figured out what's going on there yet. One thing I can say is that the specs (.h files) for the STL are damn near unreadable to this novice's eyes. Its at least as bad, if not worse, than the Ada Booch stuff. It could just be that C++ folks are used to running to some reference to figure out how stuff works, rather than diving into the sources like Ada folks can (usually) do. >masochists, but in Ada it's unacceptable for a library to be so >complicated that it takes hours to find and instantiate a list, and even >then not be sure you've got what you need without testing. Again, this is for the *first* time you try to use something. You don't even need to do that, if you can find someone else's instantiation code to clone. After that, its just a matter of making the proper "magic incantation" to instantiate your generics, and you are good to go. I think its also valuable as an Ada generics technique lesson, in the same way that the Gnat SPITBOL packages can be as an operator overloading lesson. The OpenToken project actually makes use of this same technique (the former that is, althogh there is operator overloading too). However, I tried to provide a user guide with extensive examples for how to instantiate and use it (and lots of reassurance in the hairier parts). --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.