Re: Natural data type ?

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

I've often wondered this myself. What Ada calls "Natural" numbers are what
used to be called "Whole" numbers when I was learning The New Math. What Ada
calls "Positive" would have been called "Natural" back then too. I don't
know if this is some version of "The All New And More Improved Math" or if
it was just some mistake that got institutionalized & now we're stuck with
it.

The secret is not to take the names too seriously - just understand what
they give you and work with it...

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com


"Peter I. Hansen" <pih@oek.dk> wrote in message
news:3CA12AD4.2030807@oek.dk...
> Hello
>
> I'm new to Ada and I'm reading a book by Feldman & Koffman.
> Now I see that the datatype 'Natural' is the integers {0,1,2,3,4,...},
> and type Positive is {1,2,3,4,5,....}. I know this is all akademic, but
> why this definition.
> We learn in mathematics that the natural numbers are positive integers
> not including zero..., So to me the 'Natural' way of defining these
> datatypes would be :
>
> Natural :  {1,2,3,4,5, ... }
> Positive : {0,1,2,3,4, ... }
>
> Am I all wrong here or have I stumbled across a misprint ???
>
> /Peter
>