Re: if statements

[Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com>]

In article <KsxO5.9249$pq3.738457@news.flash.net>,
  "Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org> wrote:
> "Robert Dewar" <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote in message
> news:8udce8$1qi$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
>
> : I would write the above as:
> :
> :    procedure Conditional_Swap (A, B : in out Integer) is
> :    begin
> :       if A < B then
> :          declare
> :             Temp : constant Integer := A;
> :          begin
> :             A := B;
> :             B := Temp;
> :          end;
> :       end if;
> :    end Conditional_Swap;
>
> This causes the *smaller* value to end up in A and the
*larger* value to end
> up in B? Now I REALLY feel like a beginning student!


Well this anomoly had already been pointed out, so there was
no point in repeating it, note that the above is advertised
as a rewriting of "the above code", and I did not want to
fix this problem since it would have confused the style
points I was making.

> Actually, I would also nitpick the choice of "Temp," when
> better options are available (Initial_A, or the really
> expressive Initial_Value_of_A).

I disagree, this is long-nameitis carried to absurd extremes.
Rewritten the way I had it the life time of Temp is three
lines and it is obvious that it is initialized with the value
of A. It merely obfuscates code to use long names where they
do not help the reader. I actually think a more appropriate
choice of name would have been T :-)



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