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From: Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com>
Subject: Re: 'with'ing and 'use'ing
Date: 2000/03/01
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In article <89j5h5$j0j$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Robert Dewar <dewar@gnat.com> wrote:
> In article <89h5lh$70r$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> It is really quite irritating to see a package that was
> carefully designed to be used with USE adopted into a program
> which blindly follows the no-USE policy, and end up with noise
> like:
>
>    Angle_Handling.Angle_Handling_Options := True;

As someone who would probably end up writing the above, this is a
statement I can agree whole-heartedly with. There are legitimate
examples where object names in a package can be well-designed to support
use's. In fact I saw a very good example of that in another followup of
yours. But this is not one of them. You can't possibly argue that

   Angle_Handling_Options := True;

is easier to understand than

   Angle_Handling.Options := True;

which is how it could have been named. The only difference is a single
character, and the first contains *less* information for the reader.

I just don't see what good is gained by taking this kind of naming
approach. Its as if the author was thinking: "People may do a "use",
obfuscating the origin of this object. So I'll partially thwart them by
tacking the package name to the front of the object again". Never mind
that the users of this package will now be forced to type the stupidly
redundant statement at the top, or to perform a "use" clause regardless
of whether it is appropriate in their environment.

I wouldn't bother to drag the thread off on this tangent, except that
this brand of user-callousness is rife in the Ada.* packages, and it is,
as you say, quite irritating. Worse yet is the thought that some people
may take up this style for their own general-purpose Ada packages.

--
T.E.D.

http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html


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