Re: Ada syntax questions

[Mart van de Wege <mvdwege@gmail.com>]

DrPi <314@drpi.fr> writes:

> Hi,
>
> Ada claims to have a better syntax than other languages.
> I'm fine with with, but...
>
> 1) What about array indexing ?
> In some other languages, arrays are indexed using square brackets. In
> Ada, parentheses are used for function calls and for array indexing.
> In the code "status := NewStatus(some_var);", you can't tell if
> NewStatus is a function or an array.
>
Why would you care? It is obvious that NewStatus will return something
based on the value of some_var. How it does that, by array dereference
or function call should make no difference to the caller; they are only
interested in the final value of status.

Or another look at it: array indexing is effectively a function call
anyway. It is "return value of array_base + index".

> 2) In Ada, a function without arguments is called without any parentheses.
> In the code "status := NewStatus;", you can't tell if NewStatus is a
> function or a variable.
>
Again, why would you care how NewStatus returns a value? Either by
returning the value of a function or by dereferencing a variable, all
you're interested in is the value assigned to status.

Mart

-- 
"We will need a longer wall when the revolution comes."
--- AJS, quoting an uncertain source.