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,d1df6bc3799debed X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Jeff Carter Subject: Re: Not intended for use in medical, Date: 1997/05/14 Message-ID: <3379C7C0.41C67EA6@spam.innocon.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 241493139 References: <3.0.32.19970423164855.00746db8@mail.4dcomm.com> <5kmek2$9re@bcrkh13.bnr.ca> <5ktldo$2pp@bcrkh13.bnr.ca> <01bc5ff7$22677e60$LocalHost@xhv46.dial.pipex.com> Organization: Innovative Concepts, Inc. Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-05-14T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Robert Dewar wrote: > > Nick says > > < identifiers where possible, for the extremely pragmatic reason that trying > to do a search-and-replace on them (e.g. to change all occurrences of > variable 'a' to 'x') a minefield. It's almost always easy to use two > letters instead (e.g. 'na' and 'nb' instead of just 'a' and 'b'), and > generally makes search-and-replace much less dangerous. If I could have a > penny for every time I've fallen foul of that one ... ;-)>> > > That last piece of advice of course is a reflection of decrepit tools. At > the very least, you should have an editor that recognizes identifier words, > rather than just blindly replaces characters, and ideally you should have > a decent tool that knows about Ada references. This is true. However, having worked on a US$billion project on which the only tools were an Ada compiler (this was before 1995, so it was an Ada-83 compiler in today's parlance), UNIX, and vi (that's right, not even a source-level debugger), I view all claims that "this problem is solved by better tools" with a jaundiced eye. -- Jeff Carter PGP:1024/440FBE21 Auntie-spam reply to; try ( carter @ innocon . com ) "Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time." Monty Python & the Holy Grail