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=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,c89924cb7c8c5a42 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-10-12 20:18:35 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!nntp.cs.ubc.ca!nntp-relay.ihug.net!ihug.co.nz!west.cox.net!cox.net!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!harp.news.atl.earthlink.net!not-for-mail From: Richard Riehle Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Who said strong typing is a benefit? Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2002 20:24:17 -0700 Organization: AdaWorks Software Engineering Message-ID: <3DA8E761.E9179EB0@adaworks.com> References: <8db3d6c8.0210121718.25cf55e4@posting.google.com> Reply-To: richard@adaworks.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 41.b2.68.44 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 13 Oct 2002 03:18:34 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:29736 Date: 2002-10-13T03:18:34+00:00 List-Id: steve_H wrote: > since many Ada programmers mention as one of Ada benefits is its > strong typing, I thought some here might find the following > 'interesting' to read. > > > "MATLAB Type Handling > An important benefit of MATLAB is that users do not have > to declare variables to be of certain data types, [ snipped some of the original text ] Although Ada is designed to be type-safe, this is not a problem for anyone who has no need of type-safety. It is so easy to circumvent type-safety, if you really want to do that. We start with a default of type-safe and simply relax that default as much as we wish. More important, it is rare for anyone to have difficulties with Ada's type model. Any practical programmer understands the notion of type and can write code accordingly. So what is the problem, then? More programmers have trouble with the Ada visibility rules than any other single aspect of the language. The type model supports the visibility rules. With this observation, I include the accessibility rules, which are simply a variation on visibility. In my experience, once programmers understand the visibility rules and learn to use them to their advantage, instead of fighting them at every turn, they become comfortable with Ada and begin to enjoy using it. The visibility rules are a benefit of the language design, not a curse, but it is hard to see that in the early stages of using the language. Richard Riehle