Re: Ada's Assembly Language Comments

[dan@it.uq.edu.au (Dan Johnston D.B.)]

In <0yQD$TAjanwzYw5m@clanchy.demon.co.uk> RC <rc1@clanchy.demon.co.uk> writes:

>The problems with comment nesting in 'C' were acknowledged, but were
>elegantly dealt with in Modula 2.

Pittman and Peters in "The Art of Compiler Design" give the example of the
following assignment statement in Modula 2.

  AnyString := '*) WriteString("Surprise!"); (*'

Attempting to comment out code including this statement results in the
appearance of the    WriteString("Surprise"); as an executable statment.

This is probably not too likely to occur in practice, but to me it kills
the idea that the comment design in Modula 2 is to be emulated.

Having written lots of both Ada and Modula 2,  (more Modula 2), I prefer
the Ada style provided that I have an editor - such as EMACS with Ada mode -
which allows me to easily comment and uncomment a section of code.

I can sympathise with the linewrapping problem, as I've been caught by that
also - but not in Ada.  For me, EMACS effectively solves this by putting
a \ in the last column when it line wraps.

  dan.            Dan Johnston.     dan@it.uq.edu.au