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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,38159b1b5557a2e7 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-01-24 05:28:07 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!newsfeed2.dallas1.level3.net!news.level3.com!news-out.visi.com!petbe.visi.com!newsfeeds-atl2!news.webusenet.com!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!d9c68f36!not-for-mail Message-ID: <401272E3.4040506@noplace.com> From: Marin David Condic User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 (OEM-HPQ-PRS1C03) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Standard Ada Preprocessor References: <400BDB7C.40100@noplace.com> <400D2150.6000705@noplace.com> <400E72F9.8060501@noplace.com> <400FD4F7.8050805@noplace.com> <4011CF46.3040001@noplace.com> <10140vm4dkkr9b3@corp.supernews.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 13:28:07 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.23.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net 1074950887 209.165.23.2 (Sat, 24 Jan 2004 05:28:07 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 05:28:07 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:4770 Date: 2004-01-24T13:28:07+00:00 List-Id: Rep clauses are ugly in the sense that "In A Perfect World" we'd want to let the compiler worry about how to represent data. Inherently, they make the code compiler and target dependent. By their very existence, you can't just hand someone some body of code and say "Trust me. It will compile & run on your machine..." Rep clauses are actually one of the better arguments for needing conditional compilation. (Target A? Use this rep! Target B? Use that one!) Oh sure. They are better than a sharp stick in the eye and if you have to control representation, they're an elegant solution. But they are still "Butt Ugly" in the sense that the instant you use one, you can't promise that the code will work *anywhere* except on the one compiler/target where you built it. As for submitting something to the ARG? I'll leave that to the language lawyers. They'll come up with far better proposals than I could ever write - so long as they think the idea might be a good one. I'm just the end-user of Ada - a customer - expressing what he thinks would make the language more usable on a day-to-day level. We're a dwindling herd, so maybe those opinions ought to get some attention by the people who make and sell Ada. Hope springs eternal! :-) MDC Randy Brukardt wrote: > > I think you're comparing apples to oranges. Rep clauses are an elegant way > of getting the job done; the only alternative is bit mask operations and > those are a lot harder to understand. And they certainly aren't about just > interfacing to hardware - I use them a lot to reduce storage use without > making critical parts too slow. So I guess I'd say that rep. clauses ARE > pretty. You'd be better off picking on Access_to_Address_Conversions or > something like that -- except that no one much uses any of those packages. > Perhaps because they are ugly. -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g c n i c . r "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat. Its the FAT that makes you look fat." -- Al Bundy ======================================================================