Re: "Subtract C, add Ada"

[dweller@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (David Weller)]

In article <3ejs70$dd8@info.epfl.ch>,
Laurent Gasser <gasser@masg1.epfl.ch> wrote:
>I am a happy user of Think Pascal for Macintosh.  This defunct
>compiler had two great (innovative?) tools: its debugger and an 
>automatic text formatter in the editor.  You just type
>
>if mytest then begin end else begin end;
>and at the ; the automatic formatter gives
>
>[example deleted]

>where capitals may be bold (this is somehow parametable).  This avoids 
>many many typos (in which case the formatter scrambles the mistyped 
>word) and makes it easy to move up or down with respect to nesting. 
>All this is done without compiling.  Surprisingly, this feature has 
>not caught on in other environments I know... !?
>
>Is this part of GNAT?
>
Not at all.  GNAT is a compiler, not an environment.  To get such a
behavior, you will need to use the GNU Emacs editor/environment and
get the Ada-mode additions from cs.nyu.edu.  It will do something
very much like you're looking for (much more, to be honest).

There are other editors out there that will support this mode, but
none that I know of (currently) work with GNAT or Ada95.

>In article <3ejf9b$hbg@majestix.uni-muenster.de>, rentmei@asterix.uni-muenster.de (Jahn Rentmeister) writes:
>|> But you surely know about people who - at one time - wrote things like
>|> 
>|>    for (i=0; i < MAX_LOOP; i++);
>|>       field[i]=GetFieldValue(i);
>|> 
>|> The original statement you were criticizing says "single-keystroke errors,
>|> such as...". There are more of them than just assignment and empty loops.
>|> My golden C rule says "any sufficiently obscure error is due to a missing or
>|> superfluos semicolon".
>
>-- 
>Laurent Gasser (gasser@dma.epfl.ch)
>Computers do not solve problems, they execute solutions.
>
>I know very few ideas worth dying for, none is worth killing.


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