Re: Clear Screen

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

In article <dewar.857270376@merv> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

  > I will bet anyone who cares to take the bet that none of the Annex
  > J features will disappear from the next version of Ada...It is
  > inconceivable to me that the designers of the next version of Ada
  > would introduce gratuitious non-upwards compatibilities by trying
  > to remove them!

   It is very conceivable to me that say Interrupt Entries will be
supported by no validated implementations when the next major revision
occurs, and that they would be removed on that basis.  (It is also
conceivable that some of the real-time standards and groups will keep
it viable.)  Many other chapter 13 features in Annex J can be easily
converted to legal Ada 95 constructs based on syntax alone.  Those
cases can be moved to a (virtual) preprocessor.

   During the entire time I worked at Honeywell, Cobol 8X was being
held hostage by the Alter verb, so I remember the problem well.  But
the issue there was actually putting something on the deprecated
features list, not removing it once it showed up.  I could point on
the other hand to moving non-signficant spaces to the Fortran
deprecated features list--there was a feature that deserved to die.
(OTOH, I was sorry to lose the "three way if" of Fortran I.)



--

					Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
use  Standard_Disclaimer;
function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...