Re: Optimization Question -- Follow up on using the stream read (and write) procedures directly

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

In article <t767e86uif6d5e@corp.supernews.com>,
  "Jeff Creem" <jeff@thecreems.com> wrote:
> I basically agree but I was probably not clear about what I
> was trying to accomplish. This set of
> routines is for when  you want the stream representation of
> an object to
> match the in memory
> representation

Perfectly reasonable, and this is EXACTLY the sort of low
level target dependent, type breaking operation that
Unchecked_Conversion is there for.

In some ways I think one mark of an experienced Ada programmer
is that they feel VERY uncomfortable when UC is used in an
inappropropriate manner, and VERY comfortable when it is used
in an appropriate manner.

The trouble is that a lot of people have trouble distinguishing
these cases, so they play it case and feel uncomfortable all
the time. The danger of this attitude, sometimes enshrined in
foolish coding standards that forbid the use of UC completely,
is that you miss the fact that often the *cleanest* approach
is to use UC :-)


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