Re: Ichbiah's Letter

[news.crd.ge.com!e7sa!groleau@uunet.uu.net (Wes Groleau X7574)]

In article <1993Apr15.091100@lglsun.epfl.ch> magnus@lglsun.epfl.ch (Magnus Kemp
e) writes:
>The proposal was made because we opposed the introduction of underlines
>at the end of identifiers--which was supposed to "fix" the problem of
>new reserved words (just add "_" at the end of your identifiers if they
>have become reserved...).

The trailing underscore is a quick fix that can be easily automated.  It is
NOT a good idea to allow it to remain in code when actually doing maintenance
on that code.  There is a tramendous risk of complexity in semantic analysis
if words like "until" or "tagged" are not reserved.

>The trailing underline won.  Here is an example of what will be legal
>(as submitted by the French ISO delegates):
>
>     subtype new_ is integer;
>     constant_ : constant := 0;
>     range_ : constant := constant_;
>     dot_dot : constant := constant_;
>     type is_ is new new_;
>     subtype subtype_ is is_ range range_ .. dot_dot;

I presume you are pointing out that the trailing underscore makes hideous
code legal.  Well, surprise!  Hideous code has always been legal in every
language!  The only reason some of us Ada fans aren't aware of that fact
is that we don't see much of it.  The reason we don't see much of it is
that the people who like to write it prefer C where it's easier to do.

>No_ comment_

Sorry, I just HAD to comment_