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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,43b58aea62fe6b03 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: adam@irvine.com (Adam Beneschan) Subject: Too many WITH's? (was: Perl script to show dependencies) Date: 1996/10/24 Message-ID: <54mhm3$g36@krusty.irvine.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 191635924 references: organization: /z/news/newsctl/organization newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-10-24T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article Rolf Ebert writes: >I was not interested in the dependancies which concern the compiler, but >in the logical dependancies between the modules. I wanted to apply the >rule of a thumb saying "if there are too many with clauses (~> 8), think >about your design". Just curious--where does this rule of thumb come from? Also, does it apply to Ada 83, or just Ada 95? (It does make a difference, since tagged types and child packages could make it easier to break down a module into smaller cohesive units that don't have as many dependencies.) Naturally, I do follow this rule of thumb literally, since I'm always thinking about my design anyway regardless of how many WITH clauses there are. :) Seriously, though, I'd never heard that having more than eight WITH clauses was either undesirable in itself, nor that it was an indicator of some undesirable feature of the design that needed looking into. (I think I have heard a similar rule of thumb in connection with "top-down design", but that dates from a time when the only modules were subprograms, not packages, so I wonder whether the rule should still apply.) -- thanks, Adam