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From: kcline17@hotmail.com (Kevin Cline)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: worth the hassle?
Date: 22 Jul 2002 22:39:53 -0700
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Stephen Leake <stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote in message news:<uheirlk4z.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov>...
> "chris.danx" <spamoff.danx@ntlworld.com> writes:
> 
> > <snip discussion of lists supporting limited types>
>  
> > Is this a worth while tradeoff?  I guess the question "how often are limited
> > types used?" would serve better, as it would give a measure on which to base
> > a decision.
> 
> This was discussed extensively back in December 2001 during the Grace
> Lists requirements development. You could search on Google for that
> discussion.
> 
> My own opinion is that supporting limited types is a requirement for
> any general-purpose container.
> 
> This is probably one reason why Ada will never be as popular as C++;
> in C++, you don't have to make this kind of decision :).

That's right -- in C++ there is no distinction between classes
with user-defined constructors and destructors and classes without
them.  This is another factor that makes generic programming
easier in C++ than it is in Ada.

I think the decision in Ada to create a distinction between
'limited' and ordinary types was a mistake.  It gives programmers
the impression that 'limited types' are somehow exotic, but IMHO
almost all user-defined types should be limited types.