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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,88858d66e427dbcb X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-11-06 11:44:23 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: svaa@ciberpiula.net (svaa) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Short circuit boolean evaluation Date: 6 Nov 2003 11:44:22 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <87f5a614.0311061144.360b3325@posting.google.com> References: <87f5a614.0311051528.30450c7a@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.82.64.220 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1068147863 7462 127.0.0.1 (6 Nov 2003 19:44:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 19:44:23 +0000 (UTC) Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:2166 Date: 2003-11-06T11:44:22-08:00 List-Id: "Steve" wrote in message news:... > I consider it unimaginable to make such a fundamental change to a language > in order to save a few keystrokes when more than a few billion lines of > source code might be effected. I wouldn't call it a few keystrokes, I use it in every condition. Anyhow, that's not the problem, the problem is that short-circuit has clearly proved to be better, I supose that the idea of Ada0x is to add new features and remove flaws. Backward compatibility is a problem, but it could be resolved with pragmas etc. Most sofware have eventualy made changes that had backward compatibility problems. Probably a big problem with backward compatibility means a big improvent for future developments. Sure we can live with full evaluation, but we can live better with short circuit. If we accept that short circuit is better than full evaluation, the change must be done, sooner or later. This time is as good or bad as any another. Perhaps Ada0x could let the full evaluation as default, but add a pragma that allows short circuit, and in ada1x make it as default. (it doesn't means make illegal "and then" operator). Ada has fame of bloated and burden syntax, things like this doesn't help. I think it is time and make good changes, even if they are deep. It's not time to be conservative, but brave. Will we carry "and then" in ada5x? Will we accept that flaw (a minor flaw, but a flaw) in the first version must remain for ever?.