Re: OS Bindings (was: Where is the elusive jump command?)

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

Robert Dewar wrote :
>but I still don't see the complaint, wrapping types like
>unsigned in C are useful in Ada and in C, and we have always
>have unsigned types in the sense of the above declaration of
>q in Ada.

My point is not that the modular types are not useful, but that they are
inapropriately used. The definitions of the various unsigned types in
interfaces and interfaces.C are not apropriate.

>But I see the point you are making now. I still don't really
>see why you don't like the modular types, they seem useful
>and clear to me. After all Java decided it was all they needed
>:-)

Of course they are useful. If I needed a circular buffer a modular type would
be very useful as an index. I'm sure they are wonderful if I want to create a
CRC checking routine.


A side note:
I wish we had a standardized set of C compatible datatypes which contains all
datatypes in common use with the common libraries (size_t, socket, various time
types etc). The main point is not neccessarily that the semantics are 100 %
corret, but that the size is right, so that the size attribute is useful.

Every now and then I am working on such a thing (a C program which generates
the correct definitions), but as I have a life outside computing, progress is
slow.


Helsingar,