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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,f92fbb4a0420dd57 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Mike Young Subject: Re: some questions re. Ada/GNAT from a C++/GCC user Date: 1996/04/01 Message-ID: <3160ACC6.7FC@mcs.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 145353775 references: <4jjul6$637@ra.nrl.navy.mil> content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii organization: Fen Software, Inc. mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.ada x-mailer: Mozilla 2.0GoldB1 (Win95; I) Date: 1996-04-01T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: 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.