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From: Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com>
Subject: Re: Why is it Called a Package?
Date: 2000/04/07
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In article
<Pine.BSF.4.21.0004061305320.6588-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>,
  Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote:

> I think if the syntax were to be redone I'd like the issue of
"()" versus
> "[]" for array indexing to be reexamined. Then we could also
think about
> some syntactic sugar for overloading "[]" as in C++. The
restrictions on
> the character set that were part of the original Ada
requirements don't
> make a lot of sense to me now, though the restriction to ASCII
is OK.


There is no point in revisiting this, because nothing has
changed since Ada 95. The reason for not differentiating
[] vs () has to do with referential transparency (i.e.
arrays are conceptually like functions) not with character
set restrictions.

Yes, there are arguments on both sides.

Yes, these arguments are well known since 1960

Yes, these arguments were brought up during the Ada design

No, they did not convince people that [] is a good idea

No, nothing has changed that would suggest revisiting this issue

The question of overloading indexing is of course a completely
separate one, since this is not a matter of syntax but
semantics, and is thus completely orthogonal.


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