From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, LOTS_OF_MONEY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,8f5aa913d843e013 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: jsa@alexandria.organon.com (Jon S Anthony) Subject: Re: Fragile base dependency problem Date: 1997/06/24 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 252124234 Distribution: world References: <01bc7f8f$47640780$cfe4a6ce@camden> Organization: PSI Public Usenet Link Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-06-24T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <01bc7f8f$47640780$cfe4a6ce@camden> "Dave Smith" writes: > I continually run into the classic "fragile base class" > problem as both a client and server of package libraries. Without the details it is hard to comment productively. But, from what you say it sounds like the units are not sufficiently small and decoupled. > With package libraries that I'm a client of, I must periodically > recompile *almost everything* b/c some little minute detail (which > I don't ACTUALLY depend on) changed in a package library. For example, I never seem to face this sort of problem. > Is there an appropriate way to tackle this problem in Ada? Most likely. But there may be something about your situation that makes the problem particularly difficult. In general, if you are careful about the "granularity" of the units and their coupling, this will not be a problem. > Is this problem a result of the design of gnat, or the > Ada language itself? This sort of thing is always present in some degree in a strongly statically checked language. You can get incremental compilation implementations which pretty much eliminate it. GNAT is not of this ilk, but really I don't think GNAT is the problem here either. > Does Java avoid this problem? (I've been told it does...) Not particularly. > If so, does it avoid the problem b/c it's an interpreted language? Java is not interpreted - well, I don't know of any such implementations. Typical implemenations compile to byte code (J-Code) which is executed by a JVM. > If this is the case, how will Ada survive as interpreted languages > become more and more practical? "Interpreted languages" have always been practical for their uses. More importantly, dynamically typed languages have been. Java brings nothing new here at all. /Jon -- Jon Anthony OMI, Belmont, MA 02178 617.484.3383 "Nightmares - Ha! The way my life's been going lately, Who'd notice?" -- Londo Mollari