Re: Ada syntax questions

[Gabriele Galeotti <gabriele.galeotti.xyz@gmail.com>]

On Thursday, December 17, 2020 at 11:39:47 PM UTC+1, DrPi wrote:
> Hi, 
> 
> Ada claims to have a better syntax than other languages. 
> I'm fine with with, but... 
> 
> 1) What about array indexing ? 
> In some other languages, arrays are indexed using square brackets. In 
> Ada, parentheses are used for function calls and for array indexing. 
> In the code "status := NewStatus(some_var);", you can't tell if 
> NewStatus is a function or an array. 
> 
> 2) In Ada, a function without arguments is called without any parentheses. 
> In the code "status := NewStatus;", you can't tell if NewStatus is a 
> function or a variable. 
> 
> 
> For my knowledge, are there good reasons for these syntaxes ? 
> 
> Nicolas

1)
This allows you to replace your array with a function with the same name,
which takes the subscript as an argument and returns a value, without touching your client code.
Think about an expensive lookup table -vs- a simple function which computes your data.
Do not see this as an ambiguity but rather a nice uniformity of calling something for a value.

2)
Nearly the same, but in another context and without an argument.
"NewStatus" could be, e.g., a constant, as long as types match.

G