Re: newbie inquiry

[dennison@telepath.com (Ted Dennison)]

Jeffrey Carter <jrcarter@acm.org> wrote in message news:<3D07AB92.9181741D@acm.org>...
> Steven Shaw wrote:
> > 
> > Are there features
> > in the [Ada] spec that could/should be avoided?
> 
> control. Some people suggest that you should avoid the use clause. Some

That's a good point. The "use {package};" clause is very
contraversial. I *never* use it. However, some people who's opinions I
respect have no problem with it. A newbie should avoid using it
entirely until they have their feet under them sufficently to make an
intelligent decision.

What I remember from Modula-2 style was that you never saw anyone
using module dot notation to refer to objects in other modules.
However, it was typcial to just import the specific objects you
require from a module, so that you could always figure out where
everything came from without having to look in other source files. The
"use" clause is like a naked (full) import of a module in Modula-2.
Using full package dot notation is the only alternative to that you
get in Ada.

So you can think of the "no use" camp in Ada as equivalent to the
"import with" folks in Modula-2. It can look a bit verbose at first,
but its actually nice once you learn the possiblities (hint: start
thinking of the package name as part of the object name).

-- 
T.E.D. 
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