Re: Backward compatibility between Ada 95 and Ada 83

["Marin David Condic, 561.796.8997, M/S 731-96" <condicma@PWFL.COM>]

Dale Stanbrough <dale@GOANNA.CS.RMIT.EDU.AU> writes:
>Good enough that it won't matter.
>The only things you are likely to encounter are
>        new reserved words (6 of them)
>        Character now has 256, not 128 values
>        Numeric_Error is subsumed by Constraint_Error
>        String literals can sometimes be interpreted as Wide_Strings
>
    Except for the reserved words (having to know a few more of them
    to avoid using them as identifiers) I would think the rest is
    basically invisible to someone developing code for student
    projects. If you write string code assuming Ada83 rules, it will
    behave accordingly. It's maybe more of an issue that some things
    which might have been considered a "mistake" in Ada83 are O.K. in
    Ada95

>Unless you are learning this for an existing, non migrating project,
>give your educators a big kick, and tell them to teach Ada95.
>
    Good advice. Ada95, having the GNAT compiler available, ought to
    be standard-issue for college courses in Ada. And given the new
    features, it ought to extend nicely from an "intro" level course
    on to advanced courses in operating systems, realtime systems,
    compiler theory, etc.

>There is so much more that is better in Ada95.
>
>Dale
>
    Yeah, verrily.

    MDC

Marin David Condic, Senior Computer Engineer     ATT:        561.796.8997
Pratt & Whitney GESP, M/S 731-96, P.O.B. 109600  Fax:        561.796.4669
West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600                  Internet:   CONDICMA@PWFL.COM
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