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From: Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Functions vs constants
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 00:35:13 +0300
Organization: Tidorum Ltd
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Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:21100
Date: 2014-07-22T00:35:13+03:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

On 14-07-22 00:18 , Victor Porton wrote:
> Isn't the following a mis-design of Ada?
> 
> Constants in a good programming language should be equivalent to argument-
> less functions which return these constants.

Possibly, for some personal concept of "good".

> However, in Ada functions can be overloaded by their return type, while 
> constants cannot.
> 
> Mad idea

Why mad?

>, but I propose it: Make in a future specification of Ada constants 
> overloadable (moreover, make constants argument-less functions).

Others have also suggested this, and even wider overloading (including
variables). Arguments against the idea relied on subjective opinion, if
I remember correctly.

I do not see a pressing need to make constants (or variables)
overloadable. If I want to overload constants, I define overloaded
functions which return those constants. As for variables, they are
nearly always so local that overloading seems overkill.

-- 
Niklas Holsti
Tidorum Ltd
niklas holsti tidorum fi
      .      @       .