Re: C like op= proposal

[Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com>]

In article <37BBA5E1.13FBF70E@kvaerner.com>,
  "Tarjei T. Jensen" <tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.com> wrote:
. I
> don't know if safety critical applications would want to use
> it,

That's a *really* odd comment. If this notation is any use at
all it is useful to make sources more readable and
understandable (either informally or formally). The suggestion
that it is somehow unsafe is entirely peculiar.

> but it
> would be simple to expand the @s before using the source.

Surely not! It never occurred to me that people intended this
as having macro substitution semantics. UGH! shades of the
unexpected effects of using ++ within C defines.

> So count me in on those who prefer a := @ + 1; over a += 1;

The notation

  a += 1;

is entirely foreign to Ada style syntax, it is a C-ism which
has no more place in Ada than the (rather horrible) C assignment
syntax:

  a = 1;

The proper syntactic form for this in Ada would be (borrowing
from the Algol tradition which is the fundamental inspiration
for Ada syntax);

  a +:= 1;

The problems with the above notation are not syntactic, they
are semantic, and have been discussed at length previously.




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