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=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,
	REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
X-Google-Thread: 103376,9d303864ae4c70ad
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-04-10 03:49:43 PST
Path: 
 archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!dialin-145-254-036-234.arcor-ip.NET!not-for-mail
From: "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Reprise: 'in out' parameters for functions
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 12:49:27 +0200
Organization: At home
Message-ID: <c58jg4$2qh7ca$3@ID-77047.news.uni-berlin.de>
References: <u4qrv5hwr.fsf@acm.org> <bRecOT0TxF@VB1162.spb.edu>
 <mailman.224.1081468027.327.comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org>
 <87brm1pksa.fsf@deneb.enyo.de> <c55sf6$2okkmu$2@ID-77047.news.uni-berlin.de>
 <87lll4ydj9.fsf@deneb.enyo.de>
Reply-To: mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de
NNTP-Posting-Host: dialin-145-254-036-234.arcor-ip.net (145.254.36.234)
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit
X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de 1081594181 94936458 I 145.254.36.234 ([77047])
User-Agent: KNode/0.7.2
Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:6942
Date: 2004-04-10T12:49:27+02:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Florian Weimer wrote:

> "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> writes:
> 
>> > Can't we fix that one without breaking backwards compatibility?
>> 
>> procedure Has_A_Result (...) return Result;
> 
> Well, this is solution is obviously quite bad because "procedure" and
> "function" are now almost (but not quite) interchangeable.

Isn't an access parameter almost interchangeable with an "in out" parameter?
The word "procedure" tells that there are many results. "Return" tells that
among them there is one dedicated.

>> > Or are politics involved?
>> 
>> I think so. But there also is the problem of evaluation order,
>> though simply ignored for access parameters of functions.
> 
> Does making parameters "in out" really make things considerably worse?

Let me use your argument: what would be the difference between "function"
and "procedure" then?

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
www.dmitry-kazakov.de