Re: Other Ada Standards (was Re: SIGada Conference)

[Nick Roberts <nick.roberts@acm.org>]

Russ wrote:

> ... As I said in an earlier thread, I consider myself like a real estate
>  agent who tells a seller to clear the junk out of the front yard. No, 
> that's not as important as fixing the plumbing and electrical, but it is
>  by far the most cost-effective job the seller can do. If you want to 
> sell Ada, I think you would help your cause to take this "superficial" 
> and "cosmetic" issue seriously.

Hehe. I often feel that when introducing Ada to someone by presenting them
with a minimal Ada program, e.g.:

    procedure Hello is
       Put_Line("Hello World!");
    end;

it somewhat spoils the effect by adding "Oh, and then we have to put 'with
Ada.Text_IO;' in front of that. And then we have to put 'use Ada.Text_IO;'
as well. But Ada is /really/ simple. Honest."

Context clauses must be one of the most frequently used constructs in Ada.
I think they deserve attention for that reason.

I suggest that 'with and use A.B.C;' is used, and means /exactly/ the same
as 'with A.B.C; use A.B.C;' (it fails if 'with A.B.C;' fails). It's too
confusing for 'use A.B.C;' to imply 'with A.B;'. I fear a reviewer could be
sent into a spin searching for a library unit named 'A.B.C'.

I also like the idea of 'with X renames A.B.C;' a lot. I would love to be
able to write, for example:

    with ASB renames Ada.Strings.Bounded;
    procedure ... is
       ...
       package My_Strings is new ASB.Generic_Bounded_Length(100);

-- 
Nick Roberts
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