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 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,6960ceaa57428e2f X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Ed Falis Subject: Re: Another important feature of Ada Date: 2000/11/18 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 695111035 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit References: <3A12041B.BCFD8CA0@worldnet.att.net> <8uu6tf$63d$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <3A12BBC6.E3FDAB0F@averstar.com> <8v5dkm$ftt$1@wanadoo.fr> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Complaints-To: abuse@mediaone.net X-Trace: typhoon.ne.mediaone.net 974561262 24.91.79.5 (Sat, 18 Nov 2000 10:27:42 EST) Organization: Road Runner MIME-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2000 10:27:42 EST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Program-URL: http://www.concentric.net/~brunsona/pineapplenews.html Date: 2000-11-18T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Jean-Pierre Rosen wrote: > The importance of separating specs from bodies is *not* the ability to > view them separatly, which can be accomplished with a tool as > you note. It is the ability to compile the spec, and compile users of > the spec before even thinking about the implementation. > Therefore you can check the spec, and check that the spec matches the > needs without being influenced by implementation constraints > (which often leads to over-specification). Yes, I should have mentioned that this is easily (and often) done in Eiffel using completely deferred classes with assertions. A deferred class is similar to an abstract tagged type in a package. I agree with your point about the value of being able to compile against unimplemented specs - it's always been one of my favorite aspects of Ada. But the same effect can be achieved otherwise. - Ed