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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,715875e575230543 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-10-22 05:38:19 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn14feed!wn13feed!worldnet.att.net!199.45.49.37!cyclone1.gnilink.net!spamkiller2.gnilink.net!nwrdny03.gnilink.net.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail Subject: Re: Thought this was funny From: "Christopher J. Henrich" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Message-ID: <221020030838306281%chenrich@monmouth.com> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8bit User-Agent: Thoth/1.5.4 (Carbon/OS X) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 12:38:19 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 138.89.49.50 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verizon.net X-Trace: nwrdny03.gnilink.net 1066826299 138.89.49.50 (Wed, 22 Oct 2003 08:38:19 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 08:38:19 EDT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:1414 Date: 2003-10-22T12:38:19+00:00 List-Id: In article , Vinzent 'Gadget' Hoefler wrote: > Xenos wrote: > I've seen worse things: > > |if = True then > | Boolean_Variable := True; > |else > | Boolean_Variable := False; > |end if; > > (Well, the original was written in Pascal, but that doesn't matter for > the demonstration, I guess)... > > Can someone here see any reason, why someone should not simply write > > |Boolean_Variable := ; > > instead? > > The " = True" construct alone... *sigh* I think these are the signs of a larval-form programmer, who is not sure of what is legal, or of how to understand the more abstract definitions of what is legal. Once upon a time, I was a larval-form FORTRAN IV programmer, and the DO-loop was the most powerful programming construct I knew. Or thought I knew... I knew that "DO I = 1, 10" was legal code, and I knew that "DO I = M1, M2" was legal code, but I was not sure if other, more general, integer-valued expressions could be used in a DO-loop. After all, there were those strange, non-orthogonal restrictions on what expressions could be used as array indices. So, I coded by copying examples or adapting examples to my needs. After a while, I learned. -- Chris Henrich "Try thinking of outrage as an addiction, and see if that helps." -- Nancy Lebowitz