Re: friend classes in ada95 (long)

[Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com>]

On Tue, 18 Apr 2000, David Botton wrote:
> What I am looking to do is introduce interface MI in to Ada syntax. And if I
> am already going to implement it, I might as well do it in a way that would
> make it easier to write a COM object in raw Ada. I would still never suggest
> any one try and write COM objects with out a framework like GNATCOM, much as
> most people would never write COM objects in C++ with out ATL or MFC.
> 
> Of course, I can already do interface MI in Ada already, so this is really
> just about syntax. 

Hmmm. I find that interface MI is very clumsy in Ada. Are you saying that
you find it as easy in Ada as in Java? Somehow I think I must be
misunderstanding you; please give an example of interface MI in Ada. 

There was some work at grafting interface MI into C++, indeed I believe
that GNU C++ may still support the "signature" proposal of Russo and 
Baumgartner. I thought that stuff was neat, and hope something similar
finds its way into the next Ada.

Ada already handles implementation MI well enough IMO, with generics and
the access discriminant trick. 

> I am not happy that Ada comes out looking bad in OO
> circles, since most people can not bridge the gap from "class  X" to "type X
> is tagged", even though there is none.

I guess I am one of those people who, for the most part, liked the Ada
"tagged" keyword and syntax since I first learned it, so this kind of
change is uninteresting to me. 

-- Brian