Re: Is this expected behavior or not

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:14:52 -0500, Randy Brukardt wrote:

> "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote in message 
> news:84dn4lxu5j$.1mi40bvj8e8tc$.dlg@40tude.net...
>> On Fri, 19 Apr 2013 11:07:05 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> ...
>>>   "Representation ... is meaningful, therefore it is semantically 
>>> important."
>>>   "semantics is assignment of meaning,"
>>
>> So representation is not semantics/meaning, at least to the programmer, of
>> course, not to the hardware running the program, not to the artist using
>> code printouts as tapestry patterns etc.
> 
> Ah, now we get to the root of the problem. We're talking about Ada 
> programming language design here, so when I talk about "semantics", I'm 
> talking about the semantics of the Ada programming language, as specified in 
> the Ada standard.

So you are talking a tautology that the machine executes the program
according to the language standard. Which is completely irrelevant to the
issue, which is how programs are designed and what is required from the
language side to support this activity.

>> Confusing semantics of objects with semantics of values they hold?
> 
> you're demonstrating *your* confusion. We're talking about string objects 
> here. And Ada doesn't have composite values; there are only objects.

Yes, this is the core of your confusion. You conflate language semantics
with program semantics. String is a problem space entity. The language may
have some built-in types or means in order to model strings. These types
are strings so long they model what programmers call "string." No longer.
If for whatever reason there must be more than one type to model the same
thing [string] these types must be mixed.

> You then go on to say that the existence of different types requires mixing 
> and then at the same time says that different types surely must be kept 
> separate even if the representation is the same. You're essentially arguing 
> both sides of this argument at the same time.

Not at all. I say that the choice depends on the problem space. Types are
used to model things. When modeled things are unrelated so must be the
types. When modeled things are related then types must be mixed.
Representation is irrelevant it is a vehicle to achieve the goal, an
implementation detail.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de