Re: Form Feed To Printer

[dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Pascal Obry suggests using the Latin_1 package instead of Ascii for simple
accesses to control characters.

I think that is a mistake. Ascii is not "obsolete" it is obsolescent, which
means that the designers think it might be considered for removal, but for
the moment if is a first class citizen in Ada 95, and can be used freely.
Personally I think the probability of this package disappearing in the
future is 0.00000000%

The trouble with using Latin_1 is twofold

first it drags in a lot of junk, which is likely to slow down compilation.
by contrast ASCII is right there in standard, no use clause or with clause
required.

second, if you are in a localized environment, say one using Latin-2, then
it may cause torubles to with Latin-1 as well.

This is just personal opinion, my own feeling is that the obsolescent
features annex of Ada 95 is a mistake. Anyway, it is important for people
to realize that all features in this annex are 100% required and 100%
available. It is only a matter of aesthetics as to whether one should use
them. They have been retained because they are used and potentially useful.
You can feel free to use them!