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From: Adrian Hoe <mailbox@*nospam*adrianhoe.com>
Subject: Re: Let's change semantics of "use type"
Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 20:01:48 +0800
Date: 2002-11-08T20:01:48+08:00	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <3dcb9851_2@news.tm.net.my> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 3dcb8347$0$299$bed64819@news.gradwell.net

Victor Porton wrote:

> I am suggesting (for the next Standard) to change the semantics of "use
> type" so that it would make visible not only primitive _operators_, but
> all primitive _operations_.
> 
> It seems (at the first glance) that changing Standard such the way would
> not make any correct program incorrect. (However it would make some current
> programs not compilable. If this is too bad, it can be instead denoted as
> "use all type;" for using all operations, not only operators.)
> 
> The rationale is that this is a convenient way for dealing with a type 
> imported from a package without the need of many rename directives.  These
> directives may make a long list and are "dirty" for both writing and
> reading. (Reading this list one may not understand for exactly what is
> present an item of the list and so not know (without experiment with a
> compiler) whether this item can be removed without breaking the program.
> So in certain sense the current Ada is not perfectly readable.) With "use
> all type" programmers will less tend to write multi-level designators
> which are both unreadable (especially when there are several such
> designators in an expression) and error-prone as one may forget y in
> x.y.z (mistakedly writing x.z) and get wrong behavior of the program.
> 


Without the rename directives, the program will be difficult to 
understand. With your suggestion of "use all type" may be good for 
short programs but not "large" program.

I would prefer current standards for a typical large with hundreds 
thousand lines of code (if not million) will be easily understood.
-- 
type Dmitry is new Adrian;           -- Adrian Hoe
                                      -- http://adrianhoe.com
                                      -- Remove *nospam* to email




  reply	other threads:[~2002-11-08 12:01 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 16+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2002-11-08  9:20 Let's change semantics of "use type" Victor Porton
2002-11-08 12:01 ` Adrian Hoe [this message]
2002-11-08 13:38 ` Robert A Duff
2002-11-08 20:52   ` Randy Brukardt
2002-11-08 18:12 ` Victor Porton
2002-11-09 15:20   ` Robert A Duff
2002-11-11  5:28 ` Victor Porton
2002-11-11 15:22   ` Robert A Duff
2002-11-11 15:59 ` Ted Dennison
2002-11-12  8:24   ` R. Tim Coslet
2002-11-12 15:39     ` Ted Dennison
2002-11-12 18:18       ` Preben Randhol
2002-11-12 17:29 ` Victor Porton
2002-11-12 17:32 ` Victor Porton
2002-11-18  1:25 ` Richard Riehle
2002-11-19  4:13 ` Victor Porton
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