Re: Some questions about Ada.

[bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff)]

In article <4xrat20zh0.fsf@leibniz.enst-bretagne.fr>,
Laurent Guerby <Laurent.Guerby@enst-bretagne.fr> wrote:
>Robert A Duff writes
>: In article <DqrD2C.Jyr@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>,
>[deleted]
>: Ada/Modula-3 way is better.  Some think the C++/Smalltalk way is better.
>                                                  ^^^^^^^^^
>
>   Do you mean Eiffel here ? I don't  see C++ closer to Smalltalk than
>Ada or Modula-3, in fact, Smalltalk is very close to Smalltalk ;-).

I meant Smalltalk.  Eiffel is in this class, too.

I agree that C++ and Smalltalk are quite different animals.  However, in
the particular respect I was talking about, they are the same: the unit
of modularity is the class, and the operations are thought to live
inside each object of the class.  This leads to the prefix notation that
some love and some hate (and some erroneously think constitutes the
essence of OOP).

>   Note that  the GNAT  style  switch works exactly   this way  (if  I
>remember well), and consider casing inconsistency as a fatal error.

Makes sense.  Of course, this will not allow the convention that some
people using case-sensitive languages seem to like:

    animal: Animal;

Whereas Ada requires something like:

    Animal: Animal_Type;

or

    The_Animal: Animal;

- Bob