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From: Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com>
Subject: Re: Future Ada language revisions?
Date: 1998/10/30
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Date: 1998-10-30T00:00:00+00:00
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On Thu, 29 Oct 1998, Robert A Duff wrote:
> ... snip ...
> 
> I suppose I won't be truly satisfied until I can pass an unnamed block
> (written in line) as a parameter, like I can in Smalltalk.  Sigh.

Well, I have similar tastes, if we substitute ML for Smalltalk above.
However, since Ada syntax is a bit heavy, in that you'd need to type
arguments to your anonymous subprogram, use "begin...end;", etc., I don't
think there would be that much advantage to unnamed blocks in Ada; you
might as well just declare local named functions. 

I think there would be a real win in having some restricted type-inference
or automatic instantiation of generic subprograms, as in C++, but I doubt
*that* will ever happen either. 

So, now I'm wondering, as I did in my original post, if there are
mechanisms in place to get some of the smaller changes (downward closures, 
access constant parameters, and such) into Ada.

-- Brian