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=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,21f480b42128bdcd X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Norman H. Cohen" Subject: Re: Group newbie ! Date: 1996/12/30 Message-ID: <32C813AA.1F29@watson.ibm.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 206807832 references: <441435224wnr@paley.demon.co.uk> <1996Dec22.214856.1@eisner> <255823034wnr@paley.demon.co.uk> <32C05B7F.12A8@watson.ibm.com> <32C56A7A.6BDD@earthlink.net> <680311364wnr@paley.demon.co.uk> content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii organization: IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center mime-version: 1.0 reply-to: ncohen@watson.ibm.com newsgroups: comp.lang.ada x-mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; I) Date: 1996-12-30T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Mike Paley wrote: > > It really is worth investing the effort to learn the concepts > > underlying the syntax. > > Are you implying I can't do that from the syntax ? I certainly am. Consider the example that started this thread, the need to specify an index constraint for an uninitialized variable of type String. The syntax of a variable declaration tells you that a variable declaration includes a subtype name (or, as the syntax rules call it, a "subtype mark") optionally followed by a constraint, and the syntax tells you the various forms that constraints may take. But the syntax does not explain which kinds of constraints are compatible with which kinds of subtype marks, or which kinds of variable declarations REQUIRE a constraint. You have to read the "fluff" to understand that. -- Norman H. Cohen mailto:ncohen@watson.ibm.com http://www.research.ibm.com/people/n/ncohen