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: 103376,7f4d16c4ee371eb5 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Brian Rogoff Subject: Re: Why is it Called a Package? Date: 2000/04/07 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 608056286 References: <38DF7F38.8D656ABD@lmtas.lmco.com> <38DFB0BC.9FF72EFC@callnetuk.com> <87u2hq857e.fsf@deneb.cygnus.argh.org> <38E2A4A4.E59E997C@research.canon.com.au> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Trace: nntp1.ba.best.com 955126398 215 bpr@206.184.139.136 MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-04-07T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: On Fri, 7 Apr 2000, Robert A Duff wrote: > Brian Rogoff writes: > > > > > On Thu, 30 Mar 2000, Robert A Duff wrote: > > > Geoff Bull writes: > > > > > > > Isn't it a little bit late to be arguing about this? > > > [notation for ".all"] > > > > So, your preference would be to replace ".all" by "^" and make > > explicit dereferencing mandatory? > > I'm saying that if I were to design a language from scratch, that's what > I'd do. Or, equivalently, that's what I wish the original designers of > Ada 83 had done. I am certainly not advocating any change to Ada, Ada > 0X, Ada 1X, or whatever. Oh, neither was I. I thought it was clear from your post that you were talking about designing a new, Ada like language, from scratch, given the decades of experience with Ada and some other languages. I don't advocate any non-backwards-compatible change in Ada. Apparently that was not clear from my post, so let me make it crystal clear now. I even said that I thought typed exceptions would be nice but "too late". Thankfully, Tucker Taft corrected me and thought I was being too conservative with possible changes. Too bad downward and anonymous funargs weren't included in that list with typed exceptions :-). > > I think if the syntax were to be redone I'd like the issue of "()" versus > > "[]" for array indexing to be reexamined. > > I don't think the syntax of Ada is going to be redone at this point; nor > should it. We've discussed () vs [] here before, and I somewhat agree > with you, but there are arguments both ways, and anyway I don't think it > makes sense to change things. Right, but lets say we're talking about a new language, related to Ada in the way that Sather is related to Eiffel or Modula-3 is related to Modula-2 and Oberon. I actually find that the overuse of "()" makes code less readable, as I look at blocks of Ada I want arrays and functions to look different. The two really aren't equivalent, since you can't pass functions as arguments and return them as results, at least not in a low level language like Ada. Someone once posted that this equivalence was useful to them in a real program but I've never been so fortunate. > By the way, the () vs [] debate for array indexing has good arguments on > both sides, but what about aggregates? It's really a shame that you > can't write a zero-element or one-element positional aggregate in Ada, > and the reason has to do with silly character-set issues. I agree with you here. -- Brian