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From: Adam Beneschan <adam@irvine.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: another way to shoot yourself in the foot?
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:07:10 -0700 (PDT)
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Date: 2008-06-25T08:07:10-07:00
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On Jun 24, 1:31 pm, Robert A Duff <bobd...@shell01.TheWorld.com>
wrote:

> where F returns limited, you are not passing a limited object,
> but an implicit reference to some object that already existed before the
> call to F.  You can do that more clearly by having F return
> an access type.  I really think return-by-ref was a mistake.
> Too bad we didn't think of it in 1992.  For that matter, too
> bad JDI didn't think of it in 1980. ;-)

For that matter, too bad Grace Hopper didn't think of packages,
procedures with parameters, etc., in 1959!  :-)

Unfortunately, sometimes progress only comes by learning from our
screwups.  I think I can state with certainty that there is some
absolutely essential feature X such that a comp.lang.ada poster will
legitimately be able to say, at some point in the future, "too bad
Taft, Brukardt, Duff, et al. didn't think of X in 2005".

Oh, well...

                                 -- Adam