Re: Newbee question

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

John McCabe <john@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3dfdab08.5187148@news.demon.co.uk...
>
> I wouldn't have put it that way - you have far more control over data
> representations than you have in C or C++. Record representation
> clauses (as long as the compiler supports them) are very well defined.
> In C and C++ bit-fields are a bit of a hit and miss affair.
>
Yes, but when the compiler rejects valid representation clauses simply
because it doesn't want to do it that way, you're back to picking the bits
apart out of a byte array just like you would with C or C++. Or if the
language doesn't give you a means of expressing a representation for some of
the features (How do you control where the tag goes in a tagged record so
you can effectively control the placement of everything else?) you're stuck
once again.

Ada has some really nice syntax for controlling representation - but all of
that is totally useless the instant the compiler starts rejecting it for
even *some* of the cases.

MDC
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Marin David Condic
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