Re: Another important feature of Ada

["Jean-Pierre Rosen" <rosen.adalog@wanadoo.fr>]

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"Ed Falis" <efalis@mediaone.net> a �crit dans le message news: PM000376263FFF6F15@Dogen.ne.mediaone.net...
> In the end, it strikes me as a wash, since I can do more or less the
> same in Ada as Eiffel DbC using asserts and (in the case of gnat, pragma
> debug to provide inherited contracts and overrides).  The Eiffel DbC
> capabilities take less work to accomplish the same end.  The Eiffel
> ability to present only the interface in the IDE is less work than
> separately writing specs and bodies.  And fully deferred classes handle
> the pragmatic need for control of interfaces separate from
> implementations by different stakeholders.  Both languages accomplish
> similar goals, and it seems a matter of taste as to which to prefer.
> These languages have more in common than most.
>
The importance of separating specs from bodies is *not* the ability to view them separatly, which can be accomplished with a tool as
you note. It is the ability to compile the spec, and compile users of the spec before even thinking about the implementation.
Therefore you can check the spec, and check that the spec matches the needs without being influenced by implementation constraints
(which often leads to over-specification).

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           J-P. Rosen (Rosen.Adalog@wanadoo.fr)
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