Re: Disallowing Pre-Defined Operations

["Tarjei T. Jensen" <tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.com>]

Tucker Taft wrote in
>I understand your goal, and it is reasonable.  The usual question is
>whether it is worth the cost.  There are so many great ideas that
>are possible, but only so many can be accommodated in a single
>language.  What you really want are a small number of very powerful
>and flexible concepts that allow you to solve all the
>interesting problems elegantly and safely.  Personally, I would like a full-up
>"units" capability, where generally A * A => A is not defined, since
>that doesn't balance from a units point of view.  I have some ideas
>how to get there, and would be interested in opinions from others.
>The techniques using discriminants are unsatisfactory in my view,
>and too "heavy."  VHDL has the notion of "units" built into the language,
>and its approach should probably be evaluated.


I think a "units" facility will be very attractive. I would think that it
woulld make Ada more attractive to the people who would ordinarily use Fortran.
I also think that it might be useful for those who create safety or life
critical software.

I think it is long overdue to be able to add oranges and apples and get fruit
as the result.

Whether this is achived by adding keywords or pragmas, I don't care.

Greetings,