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,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1116ece181be1aea X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-09-07 14:45:21 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: 18k11tm001@sneakemail.com (Russ) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Is the Writing on the Wall for Ada? Date: 7 Sep 2003 14:45:20 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: References: <3F5B8084.5080705@attbi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.194.87.148 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1062971121 2946 127.0.0.1 (7 Sep 2003 21:45:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 7 Sep 2003 21:45:21 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:42248 Date: 2003-09-07T21:45:21+00:00 List-Id: "Robert I. Eachus" wrote in message news:<3F5B8084.5080705@attbi.com>... > Russ wrote: > > > I remember Java interfaces only vaguely. Are you telling me that they > > do everything that Ada spec files do, and that they do it every bit as > > well, with no disadvantages? If so, then I am impressed. But that's a > > big "if". I would certainly be interested in other opinions here too. > > There is a proposal for Ada 200X to add interfaces to Ada. It has been > extensively worked, and will almost surely be added. > > Why? Because intefaces are different from Ada generics and solve other > problems. In particular adding interfaces to Ada allows derived types > where the type inherits one parent type and adds one or more interfaces. > The user must then provide explicitly declared subprograms to match > any subprograms in the interfaces that are not provided by the parent > type. (In the proposal you can inherit from only interfaces as well. > But directly inheriting from only one interface is not that interesting > a case.) Thanks for the reply, but now I'm even more confused. Mr. Rosen claimed that Java interfaces provide all the functionality of Ada spec files (.ads files). Now you come along and say that Ada is getting interfaces too because they are "different from Ada generics and solve other problems." Well, let's put 2 and 2 together. If Mr. Rosen is correct, then after Ada gets interfaces, the spec (.ads) files will be redundant and no longer really needed. I'm just a simple-minded aerospace engineer. Am I missing something here?