Re: Ada standard and maximum line lengths

[Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de>]

On 29.01.13 13:31, Niklas Holsti wrote:
> Even for hypothetical SW of some sort that generates Ada source code
> automatically, I think it very unlikely that it would generate
> identifiers of that length, since Ada identifiers can be qualified and
> sorted into packages etc. much more flexibly than is the case for linker
> symbols.

GNAT writes similar identifiers into object files, and
the same hysterical raisins spoil the cake. At least the
names---those to be exported to other compilers---seem shorter
if package hierarchies are not used extensively.

Alas, the problem of exceedingly long names in object files
can be worked around by allowing lengthy identifiers in source
text. There is a better alternative. It needs to address the
issue at some object interchange level, which is typed.
Something between function libraries from around 1970 and
{.NET, JVM, Corba, Zero-C Ice, ...}.

An incentive is needed that creates fruitful cooperation of
languages, if that is where long identifiers are a pain, and
a source of cumbersome, costly configuration.
For example, mathematicians and/or computer scientists might
like the subject if dressed like this:

  "On a denotational semantics of typed object descriptions.
   With an application to the Intel ABI."

(Anyone who could suggest this as a topic for a few dissertations?)