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: 103376,45b47ecb995e7a3 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-08-03 15:02:26 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn1feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.71!wnfilter1!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3B6B200A.4A3CEFAE@worldnet.att.net> From: James Rogers X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada Idioms Progress Preview References: <3B6A2616.C89C9760@worldnet.att.net> <5ee5b646.0108031145.1306c91@posting.google.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 22:02:26 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.86.33.54 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 996876146 12.86.33.54 (Fri, 03 Aug 2001 22:02:26 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 22:02:26 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:11267 Date: 2001-08-03T22:02:26+00:00 List-Id: Robert Dewar wrote: > > To me this is not a list of idioms, but rather a tutorial of Ada > features. That may have its own merits, but a list of real idioms > would be separately useful. > > If there is a feature X in Ada that does Y, then saying that X is > an idiom for Y is not very helpful. To me an idiom is a combination > of features that is not so obvious, e.g. the following for labeling > branches of cases I have been struggling with just this issue. To a person learning Ada, but familiar with other languages, the things you call a "feature" will appear to be an idiom. Having looked up the word "idiom" in "The American Heritage Dictionary", I get the following definitions: 1. A speech form or expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or that cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements. 2. The specific grammatical, syntactic, and structural character of a given language. 3. A regional speech or dialect. 4. A specialized vocabulary used by a group of people; jargon. 5. A style of artistic expression characteristic of a given individual, school, period, or medium. Clearly none of these are exactly what I am looking for. The word is used somewhat differently in a programming language context. I do see that the word idiom can be used both generally, and for specialized groups. It appears that you understand an idiom to be more specialized than definition 2 above. I have been working through a way to present both the general and the specialized idioms for Ada. I have started with the general idioms. I do want to include more specialized idioms such as those mentioned by Robert Dewar and Ehud Lamm. The big challenge is to organize the document so that readers can find the idioms in which they are interested. Please keep suggesting idioms. I am sure that I have not personally used all Ada idioms. Jim Rogers Colorado Springs, Colorado USA