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 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1e3f2eac5c026e3 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-12-20 01:06:32 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!82-43-33-75.cable.ubr01.croy.blueyonder.co.UK!not-for-mail From: Nick Roberts Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Other Ada Standards (was Re: SIGada Conference) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 09:06:24 +0000 Message-ID: References: <468D78E4EE5C6A4093A4C00F29DF513D04B82B08@VS2.hdi.tvcabo> <657ea3e3.0312172255.4869eae5@posting.google.com> <0cOdndZsZbH6W3yiRVn-gg@comcast.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 82-43-33-75.cable.ubr01.croy.blueyonder.co.uk (82.43.33.75) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de 1071911190 8935455 82.43.33.75 ([25716]) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-GB; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007 X-Accept-Language: en-gb, en, en-us In-Reply-To: Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:3615 Date: 2003-12-20T09:06:24+00:00 List-Id: 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 __________________________________________________________ | Fight Spam! Join EuroCAUCE: http://www.euro.cauce.org/ | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~