From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,5b3c19b1631bb558 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2000-11-01 07:30:13 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!xfer13.netnews.com!netnews.com!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.19!wnmasters2!bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3A00375E.19433DC0@worldnet.att.net> From: James Rogers X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: The best thing/greatest feature summary References: <39DCB9E3.EAE8F426@ftw.rsc.raytheon.com> <39F9FCCE.D6719C6F@ftw.rsc.raytheon.com> <1c9kvs4uvj4ofd46f7a8vq0pju596iu2gr@4ax.com> <39fed7b6@rsl2.rslnet.net> <39FF1DBD.74184FDC@worldnet.att.net> <39ff792d@rsl2.rslnet.net> <39FF8DE3.EC0055B5@worldnet.att.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2000 15:30:10 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.74.129.199 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 973092610 12.74.129.199 (Wed, 01 Nov 2000 15:30:10 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2000 15:30:10 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:1684 Date: 2000-11-01T15:30:10+00:00 List-Id: Ken Garlington wrote: > > This, of course, is the critical difference between your solution and the > Java solution. "Package_Name" may, or may not, be the name of the Ada > package -- its correctness is only enforced by the programmer's diligence > (particularly in the face of changes). The Java method does not depend upon > keeping the same information copied in two places, as in > > package MyPackage is -- [1] > > package R is new Reflect("MyPackage"); -- [2] > > Given that a goal of Ada is to reduce errors due to copying, the argument > that the Ada approach is not as desirable as the Java approach seems like a > valid criticism to me. It gets worse, of course, if you want to implement > more than just the package name: a full implementation of the Java > functionality could presumably include the names of types, objects, record > components, subprograms, parameters /return types, and exception names. Given the current Ada approach to such levels of information I think the solution would be to add a new set of attributes. Those attributes could produce string representations of names. Exception names become a more costly effort. Ada must be redesigned to list raised or unhandled exceptions as part of its signature, as is done in Java. Without such a "registration" of exceptions it would be most difficult and inefficient to compile a list of exception names for a subprogram. One of the issues associated with this new set of attributes is stream representation of objects. Do we pass the name of an object as part of that object's stream element. Java does this. Java uses this information to dynamically identify version incompatibilities. Should Ada streams be burdened with object identifiers also? If they are, I can promise you that real-time performance in bandwidth limited communication channels will suffer badly. Of course, the other possibility is for applications to design their own data representation, completely ignoring streams. This has the effect of making streams completely irrelevant. Jim Rogers Colorado Springs, Colorado