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=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1dd28d5040ded1f8 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-05-08 17:14:00 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!kibo.news.demon.net!demon!psiuk-p2!psiuk-p3!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Announce: Grace project site operational Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 09:33:46 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: References: <3CD88FBD.4070706@telepath.com> <3CD91E31.1060004@telepath.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: dhcp-200-133.miami.pace.co.uk X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 1020864828 7564 136.170.200.133 (8 May 2002 13:33:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 8 May 2002 13:33:48 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:23742 Date: 2002-05-08T13:33:48+00:00 List-Id: Not everything needs to have its own type. This is (IMHO) a typical "beginner" mistake - someone gets sold on the notion of "strong typing" (A Good Thing)then goes to the extreme of having a unique type for everything (A Bad Thing) - which just makes life very confusing and difficult. There is such a thing as "Overkill". Subtypes are often a good alternative when you're dealing with things that have some known constraint, but even there I don't think its necessary for every counter or index in a program to be of its own unique subtype. I don't see anything wrong with a generic package for containing unknown objects to return a count of whatever its holding as a type Natural and leave it to the user to convert it to some other type if they really think they need to. You know the number should never be negative and Natural'Last is probably big enough for any collection of stuff in memory. Given the likely uses of a "Length" function, I doubt it would cause much trouble. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com "Ted Dennison" wrote in message news:3CD91E31.1060004@telepath.com... > > > I'm not sure I understand either the question or the suppossed problem. > The only way you could possibly get different types back for a size > operation would be if there *were* such a generic parameter. > > >