Re: Renaming of enumeration constant

[Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 13:00:17 +0100, "Nick Roberts"
<nick.roberts@acm.org> wrote:

>"Jean-Pierre Rosen" <rosen@adalog.fr> wrote in message
>news:n3ubac.l3a.ln@skymaster...
>
>> > My own opinion is that constants are silly in Ada, but they were
>> > introduced in Ada 83 (and its predecessors), long before the question
>> > of inheritance was understood to be important.
>
>> Sorry, but this statement is wrong.
>
>> Before he wrote the LIS compiler (one of Ada's ancestors), Ichbiah was
>> famous for writing the first Simula compiler in France. He understood
>> perfectly well inheritance. The absence of inheritance in Ada 83 was
>> deliberate, and derived types were introduced in Ada83 because Ichbiah
>> insisted on it, due to his previous experience.
>
>Exactly my point, Jean-Pierre, actually! Jean Ichbiah understood the
>importance of being able to derive types -- and thank the Lord that he
>did -- but very few other people connected with the development of the
>Ada language did. There is documentary evidence of this. I have read, in
>several places, comments on derivation in Ada 83 such as "but this
>feature is not expected to be often used."
>
>Jean Ichbiah was brilliant, and well worthy of being considered the father
>of the Ada language. I think the fact that Ada 83's inheritance turned out
>to be the trump card in the design of Ada 95 is testimony to his unique
>foresight.

Amen

--
Regards,
Dmitry Kazakov
www.dmitry-kazakov.de