Re: Ada 9X Mapping

[eachus@largo.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)]

In article <5176c098.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> tedg@apollo.HP.COM (Ted Grzesik) writes:

   I worked on a large Ada program (an Ada compiler, to be precise) that used 
   lots of UNCHECKED_CONVERSION and UNCHECKED_DEALLOCATION.  Once you've 
   introduced these two routines into your program, you're just writing fancy 
   C code.  Using these routines indicates either a flaw in your design or a
   limitation of the Ada language.  Usually, it's a flaw in the design.

   Not really.  What indicates a problem is when UNCHECKED_CONVERSION
or UNCHECKED_DEALLOCATION appears in a package specification, rather
than hidden in a body, hopefully a procedure body.  For years, I have
called UNCHECKED_CONVERSION in a library package specification
UNCHECKED_PERVERSION, since it usually destroys the data independence
of both input and output types.  The cost of putting the instantiation
in the body of a procedure is small (and on a good compiler it will
just be the cost of writing additional code, not executing it), but
the difference in portability can be night and day.

--

					Robert I. Eachus

with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER;
use  STANDARD_DISCLAIMER;
function MESSAGE (TEXT: in CLEVER_IDEAS) return BETTER_IDEAS is...