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From: eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)
Subject: Re: MI for Ada
Date: 1999/02/12
Message-ID: <EACHUS.99Feb12142926@spectre.mitre.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 443712776
References: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9902111400440.7727-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>
 <36C365F8.50E84F94@averstar.com>
Organization: The Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1999-02-12T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

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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