Re: MI for Ada

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

In article <36C365F8.50E84F94@averstar.com> Tucker Taft <stt@averstar.com> writes:

  > It is probably too soon to tell.  I suggest you design the
  > semantics of the feature.  It may be that there are keywords that
  > work already.

  package Foo is new Bar(X,Y,Z) with body ... end Foo;

  Of course, given the opportunity to add a new body to a subprogram
or package, it would also be useful to be able to define a template
without an implementation:

  generic
    X,Y,Z: Integer;
  abstract package Bar is ... end Bar;

  It would be a very useful extension to the language.  Any one want
to work out the details of the semantics, then add it to gnat as a
language extension?  I suspect that taking it that far is not too much
work, but the next step to allow a new generic to be derived from an
existing and extend the interface is MUCH more work:

   generic
     type W is private;
   package Foo is new generic Bar with
     function Foobar return W;
   end Foo;
--

					Robert I. Eachus

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