Re: ada paper critic

[Brian Rogoff <bpr@bpr.best.vwh.net>]

On Mon, 17 Jun 2002, Marin David Condic wrote:
> As an Ada True Believer in good standing and one who has used the language
> for a long number of years, I can honestly say that I cannot recall ever
> having decided to change an array reference into a function call, or the
> other way around. Maybe its just me. Maybe it was the application domains I
> have worked in. But generally, by the time I got to coding something up, the
> architecture of the program was pretty well a fixed decision and arrays
> stayed arrays and functions stayed functions. So maybe I just can't see why
> its such a big deal that arrays and functions have the same syntax - or for
> that matter why they should have separate syntax.

My point isn't that I hate Ada because it does this (I don't) but that the
argument that all people who wish Ada had distinct syntax for these
distinct notions aren't necessarily disgruntled C fans forced to use Ada.
In fact, the reason Ada does it this way isn't because it was argued and
the design team came to a consensus that the way it is done is best.

I also mentioned that it is too late to fix this wart. Even if you made me
the Grand Mullah of the Ada standard, I wouldn't change this now.

> Maybe in theory its better for Ada to have "A [X]" and "F (X)" syntax. Maybe
> in theory its worse. But it sure seems like if this is in any way a wart -
> its a *really* small one.

I find it harder to read Ada code because of this decision. Not a lot
harder, but harder.

-- Brian