From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,3a1c64628a09855b X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: "(see below)" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Lack of formal syntax undermines Ada Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 16:06:45 +0100 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net X471+tXVLNuQ5u6sjolCSwt3FHUvfv6oCTllUoVbAB7EwlN3jL Cancel-Lock: sha1:TRLU9rkXcQdBB/Xw3l8gy9GjEc4= User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/12.1.0.080305 Thread-Topic: Lack of formal syntax undermines Ada Thread-Index: AcicrtKBKI34O2juTkOSLGPkeavXDQ== Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:20889 Date: 2008-04-12T16:06:45+01:00 List-Id: On 12/04/2008 13:57, in article wccod8f1ba9.fsf@shell01.TheWorld.com, "Robert A Duff" wrote: > John McCabe writes: > >> Robert A Duff wrote: >> >>> John McCabe writes: >>> >>>> As I understand it, that was deliberate; Ada's feature that functions >>>> may not have side-effects ... >>> >>> Ada functions can have side effects. >> >> Bugger - where did I get that idea from then (have to admit, it's been >> a while since I paid a lot of attention to Ada!) > > Perhaps from the fact that 'in out' and 'out' parameters are illegal for > functions. As Robert Dewar likes to point out, the effect of this rule > is that functions can have side effects, so long as they are not > properly documented. ;-) > > Functions can modify global variables if they are visible. > Functions can also modify data via pointers. And they can call procedures or entries that can do almost anything. -- Bill Findlay chez blueyonder.co.uk