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=1.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,INVALID_DATE
	autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!inmet!stt
From: stt@inmet
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Question about Ada expressions
Message-ID: <20600010@inmet>
Date: 12 Oct 89 22:07:00 GMT
References: <8834@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Nf-ID: #R:spool.cs.wisc.edu:-883400:inmet:20600010:000:658
Nf-From: inmet!stt    Oct 12 18:07:00 1989
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Ada tried to use the "conventional" precedence
rules when defining operators.  However, it has
never been entirely clear where XOR belongs relative
to AND and OR, nor how regular AND
and short-circuit AND THEN should
fare relative to one another.  The net result
was that they "punted" in this area and said
use parentheses when using two logical operators
in sequence.  

It might have been ideal in some
people's mind if at least AND had clearly higher precedence 
than OR so that your example could be coded without
parentheses, but Ada has always tried to err
on the side of readability over writability.

S. Tucker Taft
Intermetrics, Inc.
Cambridge, MA