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-Thread: 103376,cae92f92d6a1d4b1 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!feeder.news-service.com!news.netcologne.de!newsfeed-fusi2.netcologne.de!newsfeed-0.progon.net!progon.net!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.belwue.de!newsfeed.arcor.de!newsspool4.arcor-online.net!news.arcor.de.POSTED!not-for-mail Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 10:28:23 +0100 From: Georg Bauhaus User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101129 Thunderbird/3.1.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada.Execution_Time References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <4d05e737$0$6980$9b4e6d93@newsspool4.arcor-online.net> Organization: Arcor NNTP-Posting-Date: 13 Dec 2010 10:28:23 CET NNTP-Posting-Host: 525b9ea9.newsspool4.arcor-online.net X-Trace: DXC=^Oo:SNMN>fkf1oJaJ0@dmg4IUKVD3a4FP\;Mae>Mf X-Complaints-To: usenet-abuse@arcor.de Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:15910 Date: 2010-12-13T10:28:23+01:00 List-Id: On 12/12/10 10:59 PM, BrianG wrote: > But my question still remains: What's the intended use of Ada.Execution_Time? Is there an intended use where its content (CPU_Time, Seconds_Count and Time_Span, "+", "<", etc.) is useful? I think that your original posting mentions a use that is quite consistent with what the rationale says: each task has its own time. Points in time objects can be split into values suitable for arithmetic, using Time_Span objects. Then, from the result of arithmetic, produce an object suitable for print, as desired. While this seems like having to write a bit much, it makes things explicit, like Ada forces one to be in many cases. That' how I explain the series of steps to myself. Isn't it just like "null;" being required to express the null statement? It seems to me to be a logical consequence of requiring that intents must be stated explicitly. Some found the explicit null statement to be unusual, bothersome, and confusing in the presence of a pragma. Thus it was dropped by the language designers. The little learning it took, the few words of explanation, explicitness of intent dropped in favor of a special case in Ada 2012 which lets one use a pragma in place of a null statement. (And re-introduce "null;" once rewriting / removing debug stuff / etc is taking place.) Let's hope we can buy support tools in the future to help us ensure the effects of language special casing can be bridled per project.