Re: Implementing C/C++ style #include...

[Anton Gibbs <anton@zooks.demon.co.uk>]

In article <99d5dj$fi4$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, Marin David Condic <marin.condi
c.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> writes

>I just distrust this sort of add-on to a language and I think Ada is rich
>enough to get the job done without a preprocessor. If a programmer is used
>to thinking in terms of lexical inclusion rather than semantic inclusion,
>preprocessors behave more the way they are used to working. If you make the
>mental shift into packages, generics, "with" statements, etc., you probably
>won't feel the need to rely on preprocessors since you'll evolve mechanisms
>to do the same job in The Ada Way.

I agree that Ada is rich enough to do the programming part of systems
development without the need for a pre-processor but my experience is
that a pre-processor can help enormously with configuration management.
For example, to be able to include or exclude specific functionality
according to a set of pre-processor options allowing different variants
of a system to be built whilst retaining the same essential
architecture. We even use this technique to cater for different target
execution environments (compiled using different compilers and, in fact,
different versions of Ada (83 vs. 95)).   

-- 
Anton Gibbs