Re: Ada Tasking problem

[agate!spool.mu.edu!wupost!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ub!dsinc!gvlf3.gvl.un isys.com!email!parkhill@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (parkhill)]

Humble suggestion:

  Why not treat your output console as a shared device and write a
  standard interface to the device?  Write a package specification
  that provides all the operations you require (locking the device,
  time sharing, type and format of output, whatever).  Hide the exact 
  method of implementation of output and locking of the device in 
  the body of a package.  The body of the package will probably require
  another task be added.

  I have found that it can be unwise to let tasks use an output device
  in an uncontrolled/unsynchronized manner.  Putting the control of 
  the synchronization in a single package keeps the code in the package
  instead of every task that might want to access a device (text_IO
  console).  The body may have to be implemented in a target dependant 
  manner but the other code remains more or less portable.

Robert Parkhill