Re: Initialization and Finalization of limited object "returned" by a function

["(see below)" <yaldnif.w@blueyonder.co.uk>]

On 12/02/2010 16:57, in article
9c2b5c56-7abf-4523-844d-b48447587402@w27g2000pre.googlegroups.com, "Adam
Beneschan" <adam@irvine.com> wrote:

> I also remember some of the attempted rationalizations at the time; in
> particular, why did Ada use parentheses for both subprogram calls and
> array indexing, when other popular languages (Pascal and C) used
> square brackets for indexing.  Someone came up with an argument that
> it was actually a good thing to use the same characters for both,
> because then if your program uses Arr(Index), where Arr is an array,
> you could redesign your program to make "Arr" a function and the
> change would be transparent.  That seemed like a stretch at the time.

Douglas T. Ross, the author of AED-0, was keen on the idea of "uniform
referent" notation, i.e., using the form F(X) for a function call, an array
element, or the field F of record X (as in Algol W).

I think it had some merit, although much diminished by the invention of
opaque/private types.

-- 
Bill Findlay
<surname><forename> chez blueyonder.co.uk