Re: Type casting question

[reason67@my-deja.com]

Before I begin I would like to say that your posts always come across a
little smug to me. If it is important to you that people think you are
smarter than me, I will state for the record that Robert Dewar is
smarter than Jeffrey Blatt. Now with that conclusion already in place,
perhaps the attitude will no longer be required and we can discuss
issues in the future without it.

> > I think it is far safer to determine which version of the
> language they
> > are using from context. When people use Ada 83 syntax, I
> assume they are
> > using Ada 83 unless they state otherwise.
>
> That's a bit bizarre, there is no such thing as using Ada 83
> syntax in this context, since all Ada 83 syntax is included
> in Ada 95. I really have NO idea what you are talking about!

Here is what I am talking about. The original example had the code
fragment:

type Bit_5 is range 2#0# .. 2#11111#;
     for Bit_5'Size use 5;

1. While this is valid in Ada 95, as you pointed out, it is really not
the best way to do it. No Ada 95 programmer would consider that as a
real solution for modeling 5 bits because mod types give you much more.
However, it was the only way to do it in Ada 83.

2. I recently changed jobs in October (I am an Ada Contract Engineer,
I do that often and have a pretty diverse experience in the US Ada
Marketplace) and in the US, the majority of the Ada jobs that were
advertised or that recruiters talked to me about were still using Ada
83.

Given these 2 points, in my experience and the context of the question
asked, I assumed it was Ada 83 and gave/would have given an Ada 83
solution.

Do you understand what I am talking about now?

> The notion that Ada means Ada 95 is not an invention of the
> list, it is the formal position of ISO. Once a new standard
> comes out, the name refers ONLY to the current standard!

While, technically, that may be true, in the market place job are
advertised in the USA as Ada or Ada 95. If a recruiter tells me about an
Ada job, it has always been (in my experience) an Ada 83 job. If the job
is Ada 95, then that is specifically stated. People I have worked with
in the Ada 83 world refer to Ada 83 as simply "Ada". People I have
worked with in the Ada 95 world refer to the two languages as Ada 83 and
Ada 95.

Perhaps your experience is different, but I do not consider ISO's
position on what can and can not be called Ada to be nearly as relevent
as what people are actually doing.
---
Jeffrey Blatt


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