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From: kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)
Subject: Re: Why is it Called a Package?
Date: 2000/03/27
Message-ID: <2000Mar27.111655.1@eisner>#1/1
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References: <38DF7F38.8D656ABD@lmtas.lmco.com>
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Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 2000-03-27T00:00:00+00:00
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In article <38DF7F38.8D656ABD@lmtas.lmco.com>, Gary Scott <Gary.L.Scott@lmtas.lmco.com> writes:
> Admittedly a "fluff" question...
> 
> I notice that a lot of modern languages choose names/syntax that I
> personally do not find intuitive.  Other languages contain basically the
> same feature but call it by different names (module, etc.).  Why was
> "package" considered the intuitive name for this feature?

I was not there when the decision was made, but I would presume the
goal was to _avoid_ using a familiar name since other languages do
not typically have something that behaves in this fashion.  If one
were to propose the term "module", for instance, those who knew
other programming languages and were learning Ada might presume
that it worked like a "module" in those other languages, and they
would be wrong.

I program in several languages that have "modules" and those "modules"
do not support separately compiled specifications and bodies, cannot
be nested within other "modules", etc.