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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,45b47ecb995e7a3 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-08-06 19:45:06 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshub2.home.com!news.home.com!news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail From: tmoran@acm.org Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada Idioms Progress Preview References: <3B6F1B2F.4FC3C833@gsde.hou.us.ray.com> X-Newsreader: Tom's custom newsreader Message-ID: Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 02:45:06 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.7.82.199 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com 997152306 24.7.82.199 (Mon, 06 Aug 2001 19:45:06 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 19:45:06 PDT Organization: Excite@Home - The Leader in Broadband http://home.com/faster Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:11437 Date: 2001-08-07T02:45:06+00:00 List-Id: Perhaps Ada should not have idioms. An idiom makes no sense to someone who doesn't know it, eg "He lost his marbles". Unless it's so well known that you can guarantee that a maintenance programmer will recognize it, you shouldn't be, and shouldn't have to be, using it. What's really wanted, I think, is a set of "here's how you use Ada features to accomplish this purpose" techniques. The declare block, for instance, is clear to someone seeing it for the first time, but doesn't spring to mind for a new Ada programmer wondering how to locally suppress checking, or how to save a string of unknown length.