Re: some questions re. Ada/GNAT from a C++/GCC user

[Mike Young <mikey@mcs.com>]

AdaWorks wrote:
> 
>   What I see happening with locally declared variables is the practice
>   of nesting yet another declare block inside one that already exits
>   during maintenance.  After while, the nested declare blocks begin to
>   take over the design.  It really annoys me when I pick up someone's
>   program and find nested declare blocks several pages long.  Imagine
>   what this would like in C++.

========
Tut tut, Richard. Save the cheap shots for when they're absolutely 
necessary.

It's rare to find even poorly written C++ code "several pages long," let 
alone nested scopes that size. You can find poor programmers in any 
discipline, apparently.

>   The word "verbosity" feels slightly pejorative in this discussion.
>   I sometimes like the brevity of C and C++ contructs, just as I continue
>   to appreciate the simplicity of BASIC. However, for large-scale systems
>   that must be maintained over a long time-span, the more explicit wording
>   required by Ada seems more appropriate.

======
I may be going out on a limb here [comma] but per chance an extreme example 
might make the point [period] I don[tick]t believe Robert[tick]s point was 
in regards to notation [comma] but rather the extremes some might go to 
avoid verbosity [period] [open paren] Personally [comma] I prefer a terser 
notation where little chance of confusion exists [period] Yes [comma] 
I[tick]m aware that this may come across as somewhat patronizing 
[period][close paren]

> 
> : So here's a case where trying to FORCE people to write good code
> : backfires.

=======
Out on a limb even further, I'm rather struck by how strongly Ada attempts 
to enforce a certain set of coding standards. It took two readings of 
Barne's book to pluck out the grammar from the syntactic rules.

Mike.