Re: ARG asks Ada Community for API Proposals.

[Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com>]

Dale Stanbrough wrote:

> What are the likely new features of Ada though? If we have 
> can have some form of implicit instantiation of generics, or
> if Ada provides fully fledged constructors (not just functions)
> or if Ada deprecates the use of some features, then all of these
> could well affect the design of any class libraries.


A damn good point. We have already discovered during the process of 
defining the Grace container packages that lack of default values for 
generic instantiations causes us to have to throw out a lot of features, 
lest we run afoul of our instantiation simplicity requirements.

It would be a damn shame to end up with something like that in the 
standard, along with the new features that make the trade-offs unnessecary.

However, I do think a lot of stuff that we didn't put in due to lack of 
default generic parameter could be added at a later date without huge 
structural changes. Presumably there will be a webpage somewhere where 
folks can go to keep themselves abrest of the latest proposed language 
changes.