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=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,791ecb084fdaba75 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-09-29 18:31:22 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!wupost!uhog.mit.edu!news.kei.com!MathWorks.Com!noc.near.net!inmet!dsd!stt From: stt@dsd.camb.inmet.com (Tucker Taft) Subject: Re: Types with physical dimension Message-ID: Sender: news@inmet.camb.inmet.com Organization: Intermetrics, Inc. References: <36deok$dce@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 13:37:40 GMT Date: 1994-09-29T13:37:40+00:00 List-Id: In article <36deok$dce@gnat.cs.nyu.edu>, Robert Dewar wrote: >"Of course it would be nice to have more direct support for units" That's cheating a bit (you must have a politician in the family) -- you left off my parenthetical comment and smiley "(given infinite resources, that is ;-)" >In the "of course" here likes a rather fundamental assumption which I >question, namely that it is always desirable to have features at hand >that do exactly what you want in the most convenient way. While that >may seem locally optimal, I am afraid that following this inclination >repeatedly leads to too much complexity in language design. > ... I completely agree with the above, and that is one reason why Ada 9X does *not* have direct support for units. You always have to weigh complexity versus benefits (some people's scales are sturdier than others ;-). I guess I should have "expanded" on my smiley a bit more... -Tucker Taft