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From: "W. Wesley Groleau (Wes)" <see.signature@this.message>
Subject: Tangent to Religious naming convention discussion ......
Date: 1997/05/15
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Organization: Hughes Defense Communications
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-05-15T00:00:00+00:00
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John G. Volan wrote:
>   with Unitless;
>   package Angles is
> 
>     type Angle_Type is private;

This is an excellent approach (though in itself it doesn't
support the "_Type" concept--to lessen :-) the "tangent").
Just make sure you provide the clients with something like

  function Degrees ( From : Angle[_Type] ) return Float;
  -- or at least
  function Degrees_Image ( From : Angle[_Type] ) return String;

>     -- Going with a private type is a tough decision here.

There is a disadvantage (easily overcome) to losing the use of
attributes, .... 

>     -- I'm not necessarily recommending it.  An alternative
>     -- could be to make this a visible float type and just
                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>     -- override as abstract any built-in functions (e.g. "*")
>     -- that violate unit dimensionality. 

.... but this way some fool is sure to peek into your package 
body and, taking advantage of the "fact" that you implemented in 
Radians, write something like:

  Put_Line ( "Heading:" & 
             Integer'Image ( Integer ( Heading * 180.0 / Pi ) ) );

Before we go off on _another_ tangent about engineering discipline,
remember that many software "engineers" develop a strange form of
insanity when managers start grumbling about schedules..... 

----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA
Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS                  Tool-smith Wanna-be

  w w g r o l  at  p s e u l t 0 1  dot  f w  dot  h a c  dot  c o m

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