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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,6bd5598e439c30ef X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff) Subject: Re: explicit null Date: 1996/05/09 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 153936432 references: <9605091727.AA01200@most> organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-05-09T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <9605091727.AA01200@most>, W. Wesley Groleau (Wes) wrote: >The chances of the above search occurring under deadline pressure are >'null' :-) With no pressure, about 5%. ... You're correct, of course. In most projects, in most situations. But it seems to me that this is an argument against having *any* coding conventions beyond what the language RM actually requires. >... If what I've observed in twenty >years of working with other people is typical, more than half will not >notice the explicit null. Of those that do notice it, most will think, >"Whoever wrote this doesn't know Ada very well." They will remove the >"unnecessary construction" and maybe even search the file for other >"unnecessary constructions." Having the mindset to find such, they will >fmisjudge things that ARE necessary and remove them too. True, if people don't understand the convention, they won't obey, and they'll change code to disobey it. But this seems like a point against *any* sort of coding convention. See, for example, the way ACT works, for a situation in which people actually pay attention to project-wide conventions. >Me, neither. One exception: I have run across a compiler that failed to >initialize access fields in certain nested record situations. But then >I would take half a line AT EACH SUCH LOCATION to explain why there's >an explicit null. Indeed. Every time I write code in a certain way just because some compiler has a bug, you'll see a comment in the code to that effect. - Bob