From: "Stanley R. Allen" <s_allen@hso.link.com>
Subject: Re: Type mess in Ada standard library
Date: 1999/07/23
Date: 1999-07-23T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <3798909F.6C5E7730@hso.link.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 7n5cp9$89b$1@nnrp1.deja.com
Robert Dewar wrote:
>
> In article <7n41v3$j6$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>,
> mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk (Markus Kuhn) wrote:
>
> > Would it at the same time also be possible to add anonymous
> > arrays?
> >
> > typ'Array(0..255,0..255) -- anonymous 64k 2D array of typ
> > typ'Array(<>,<>,<>) -- any 3D array of typ
>
> In fact it is *exactly* this question that makes me think that
> it is a bad idea to introduce the anonymous access type. If
> people simply think of this as a way to weaken typing (as in
> the above array proposal), rather than as a way to solve a
> particular problem in genericity at the interfacing level, I
> am afraid that such features can do more harm than good.
>
History repeats itself. I remember when the revision process
started for Ada 9X, at the beginning there were a great many
language proposals which effectively ignored Ada's basic
foundational concepts. There were articles in Ada Letters that
shocked me, the suggestions were so wild. On the old INFO-ADA
list (twin sister to CLA) there was always someone popping off
with an impromptu language change.
I was relieved when I went to a WAdaS conference around that
time and heard a panel of authorities involved in the Ada 9X
process. One panelist made reference to these kinds of
suggestions by making an analogy: that the suggestions he had
heard reminded him of a group of people walking through a
cathedral and discussing modifications, and they come upon
one of the supporting pillars of the structure. One of them
says "This pillar is sort of inconveniently placed -- let's
move it to a different part of the cathedral".
--
Stanley Allen
mailto:s_allen@hso.link.com
P.S Does anyone know how to get access to the archives of
the old INFO-ADA list?
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1999-07-23 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 10+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1999-07-20 0:00 Type mess in Ada standard library Markus Kuhn
1999-07-20 0:00 ` Michael F. Yoder
1999-07-21 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-07-21 0:00 ` Markus Kuhn
1999-07-21 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-07-22 0:00 ` Bill Findlay
1999-07-23 0:00 ` Stanley R. Allen [this message]
1999-07-21 0:00 ` Aidan Skinner
1999-07-22 0:00 ` Bill Findlay
1999-07-23 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
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