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From: Bill Ghrist <ghristwd@pgh.net>
Subject: Re: Question for the folks who designed Ada95
Date: 1999/04/29
Message-ID: <3728563E.87AF841F@pgh.net>#1/1
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References: <7g2qu4$ca4$1@usenet.rational.com>
 <7g3b5g$p92$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <7g4ae3$hjh2@ftp.kvaerner.com>
 <3725C49E.8106A44B@aasaa.ofe.org> <7g4mrs$v5n$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
 <7g72rf$hjh3@ftp.kvaerner.com> <7g7h5s$gcl$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
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Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1999-04-29T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

We have tens of thousands of lines of safety-critical code written in
PL/M-86, which uses "()" for both arrays and functions.  I'm pretty
certain that we have never had any problems caused by people confusing
the two usages. 

Regards,
Bill Ghrist

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> In article <7g72rf$hjh3@ftp.kvaerner.com>,
>   "Tarjei Tj stheim Jensen" <tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.no>
> wrote:
> > What would a(5) := 4;
> 
> if a represents a function from an abstract point of view,
> it does not mean a blithering thing. The fact that a is
> implemented as an array is irrelevant. Indeed presumably
> a reasonable choice for implementing a conceptual function
> as an array would be to use a constant array, where the
> above assignment would be illegal.
> 
> Which in my opinion voids the function opposition to the
> common convention of using square brackets for array
> indices.
> 
> There is no such *common* convention. There are *two*
> common conventions in this case () and [], and plenty
> of examples of languages using both (for example, Fortran,
> PL/1, COBOL, Ada, all use (), and Algol derived languages
> tend to use []).
> 
> But to call one of these common is simply tunnel vision.
> You cannot argue this point on the basis of what is common.
> Sure, for a given person (I assume you grew up in a C
> heritage) one usage may seem more natural [the brackets
> seem more natural to me because I am used to them from
> Algol-68], but that's not a useful way to argue.
> 
> The referential transparency argument is a quite reasonable
> one, and your assignment example does not refute it!
> 
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