From: Marin David Condic <mcondic.nospam@acm.org>
To: Frank Christiny <fchris@pdq.net>
Subject: Re: Three simple questions
Date: 2000/10/11
Date: 2000-10-11T14:39:29+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <39E47BAC.8DB1AD0B@acm.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 2BED68CA963D6D55.A78776F656DA0452.75A61ED22116F1B6@lp.airnews.net
Frank Christiny wrote:
> 2. What is the rationale for case-insensitivity in the language?
> I am beginning to think it is mostly for historical reasons
> (some machines didn't have two case letters way back then, etc.).
> Are there any real technical reasons for why this is so even
> after Ada95, besides preserving backwards compatibilty?
Ada is not case-sensitive because case-sensitivity is a bad idea. In
normal English usage, there is no significant difference between "Marin"
or "MARIN" or mArIn". Readers would interpret that to mean a reference to
me. Identifiers in a program are likely to be similarly interpreted on
cursory inspection, so it would be a bad idea to have "x" mean an entirely
different variable than "X". Too much opportunity for subtle bugs.
Case sensitivity in a language or OS is an abomination and those
responsible should be kept from getting into the gene pool through some
sort of sterilization program. But that's just my guarded, reserved,
polite opinion. Sometime ask me how I *really* feel. :-)
>
> 3. How can one block-comment in Ada?
> It can become cumbersome sometimes, adding all those "--"s in
> front of a large block of code one wants to "test out" on the fly.
> Again, are there any good technical-engineering reasons why this
> feature was left out?
There are no "Open/Close" comment delimiters. Some of the Ada sensitive
editors will let you highlight a block of text and comment/uncomment it in
one swell foop. Weakness or Strength? You be the judge.
MDC
--
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2000-10-11 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 101+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2000-10-09 0:00 Three simple questions Frank Christiny
2000-10-09 0:00 ` John McCabe
2000-10-09 0:00 ` Frank Christiny
2000-10-10 0:00 ` John English
2000-10-10 0:00 ` Dale Stanbrough
2000-10-10 0:00 ` John English
2000-10-10 0:00 ` Ted Dennison
2000-10-11 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
2000-10-11 0:00 ` Ted Dennison
2000-10-12 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
2000-10-12 0:00 ` The AI process (was: Three simple questions) Ted Dennison
2000-10-12 0:00 ` Marc A. Criley
2000-10-12 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
2000-10-16 0:00 ` Three simple questions Robert A Duff
2000-10-10 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
2000-10-11 0:11 ` wv12
2000-10-10 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
2000-10-14 3:25 ` Robert Dewar
2000-10-15 0:00 ` The Ludwig Family
2000-10-16 0:00 ` Florian Weimer
2000-10-17 0:00 ` David Starner
2000-10-18 0:00 ` Florian Weimer
2000-10-19 0:00 ` David Starner
2000-10-21 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
2000-10-21 0:00 ` David Starner
2000-10-23 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
2000-10-28 11:00 ` Robert Dewar
2000-10-28 10:56 ` Robert Dewar
2000-10-28 10:57 ` Robert Dewar
2000-10-21 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
2000-10-21 0:00 ` David Starner
2000-10-16 3:10 ` Robert Dewar
2000-10-17 0:00 ` The Ludwig Family
2000-10-16 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
2000-10-16 0:00 ` James Hassett
2000-10-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
2000-10-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
2000-10-11 0:00 ` David Gillon
2000-10-11 0:00 ` mjsilva
2000-10-11 0:00 ` John English
2000-10-11 0:00 ` Pascal Obry
2000-10-11 2:12 ` DuckE
2000-10-10 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
2000-10-10 0:00 ` Case for case-sensitivity (Was: Three simple questions) Frank Christiny
2000-10-10 0:00 ` David Starner
2000-10-12 0:00 ` John English
2000-10-10 0:00 ` Ted Dennison
2000-10-10 0:00 ` David C. Hoos, Sr.
2000-10-10 0:00 ` mjsilva
2000-10-10 0:00 ` John Magness
2000-10-10 0:00 ` tmoran
2000-10-11 0:00 ` John English
2000-10-11 0:00 ` Frank Christiny
2000-10-12 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
2000-10-14 0:00 ` nickerson
2000-10-15 1:48 ` Robert Dewar
2000-10-15 0:00 ` Jean-Pierre Rosen
2000-10-11 0:00 ` dmitry6243
2000-10-11 4:39 ` Ken Garlington
2000-10-10 0:47 ` Three simple questions Larry Elmore
2000-10-10 1:16 ` Ed Falis
2000-10-11 3:47 ` Jeff Carter
2000-10-13 0:00 ` Philippe Torres
2000-10-13 0:00 ` Stefan Skoglund
2000-10-10 0:00 ` Pascal Obry
2000-10-11 3:59 ` Jeff Carter
2000-10-14 0:00 ` Keith Thompson
2000-10-10 0:42 ` Ken Garlington
2000-10-11 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
2000-10-12 1:05 ` Bjarne Bäckström
2000-10-13 0:00 ` Anders Wirzenius
2000-10-13 0:00 ` Wes Groleau
2000-10-14 3:28 ` Robert Dewar
2000-10-13 0:00 ` Bjarne Bäckström
2000-10-16 0:00 ` Anders Wirzenius
2000-10-11 0:00 ` Simon Wright
2000-10-14 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
2000-10-11 0:00 ` Marin David Condic [this message]
2000-10-13 0:00 ` Keith Thompson
2000-10-13 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
2000-10-13 0:00 ` Wes Groleau
[not found] ` <39EAEEEA.4F58C47C@cepsz.unizar.es>
2000-10-16 0:00 ` David Starner
2000-10-16 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
2000-10-16 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
2000-10-16 0:00 ` Florian Weimer
2000-10-17 0:43 ` Robert Dewar
2000-10-17 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
2000-10-17 0:00 ` Florian Weimer
2000-11-03 7:24 ` E. E. Cummings (was Re: Three simple questions) Robert I. Eachus
2000-10-17 0:00 ` Three simple questions Keith Thompson
2000-10-17 0:00 ` Wes Groleau
2000-10-14 0:37 ` Ken Garlington
2000-10-14 0:00 ` Richard Kenner
2000-10-14 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
2000-10-14 0:00 ` Laurent Guerby
2000-10-16 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
2000-10-16 0:00 ` Laurent Guerby
2000-10-17 0:00 ` Ronald Cole
2000-10-17 0:00 ` Wes Groleau
2000-10-11 0:00 ` Pat Rogers
2000-10-11 0:00 ` Larry Hazel
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