Re: Ripple effect

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"Jeffrey R. Carter" <spam.not.jrcarter@acm.not.spam.org> wrote in message
news:fm5Lg.947292$084.573762@attbi_s22...
> It seems awkward. We're working on a project. I create package B, which
> has "with A;" on it. I thought B would need it, but I was wrong, and
> forgot to remove it. You're developing C and need to use B, so you have
> "with B;" on C. Then you realize you need to use A and write some code
> that references A. You forget to put "with A;" on C, but it compiles OK
> because B references A. Then I clean up B and remove the reference to A
> from it. Now C doesn't compile. That seems undesirable.

It *is* undesirable. Janus/Ada had a bug like that, and it caused no end of
trouble (especially porting code to other compilers, but also with unrelated
units suddenly going bad when something is changed). Of course, I recently
fixed the bug, and that turned out to be undesirable, too, because a lot of
things fail to compile now... Sigh.

                            Randy.