Re: Q: access to subprogram

[jsa@organon.com (Jon S Anthony)]

In article <4rr5tu$sap@watnews1.watson.ibm.com> ncohen@watson.ibm.com (Norman H. Cohen) writes:

> (By the way, I share Bob Duff's amazement at the noninclusion of downward
> closures--we called them downward at the time--in Ada 95, and I say this
> as one of those Bob described as urging the removal rather than the
> addition of proposed Ada-95 features.  I viewed the inclusion of downward
> closures as the REMOVAL of an arbitrary restriction.  The decision was
> not made in ignorance.  Bill Taylor had made what I considered an
> irrefutable case for downward closures, showing how much easier it would
> be to write iterators if downward closures were allowed.  It came down to
> a conflict between the interests of Ada programmers and the interests of
> a minority of Ada implementors, and in this case the interests of the few
> implementors using displays prevailed.)

While the lack of direct support for recursive types across package
boundaries and lack of assertions are more important (IMO) goofs, and
while the evinced reasons for the latter one are mind numbingly
incomprehensible, this latest example would appear to take the crown
for the most stupefying goof.  Just amazing...

/Jon
-- 
Jon Anthony
Organon Motives, Inc.
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