Re: Restrictions on compilers for Microsoft's .NET project

[Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen)]

In article <5ee5b646.0202111821.4dba9889@posting.google.com>, dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) writes:

> This seems to me a tempest in a teapot (nice english phrase 
> meaning Much Ado About Nothing (entertating Shakespeare
> title, meaning a lot of fuss about a small point)).

The phrase is quite familiar to me with a non-classical US education.

> The RM also says you don't have to do anything you can't
> do. So if indeed .NET does not allow variants to overlap,
> then Ada compilers in this environment won't allow overlapped
> variants. This only affects the set of rep clauses that are accepted,
> and it is to be expected that
> in protected environments such as the JVM and .NET that there will be
> restrictions on rep clauses.

Whether this matters or not, as we say in computers, depends on
the application.  I have some variant records that would require
up to four times as much disk space without overlap. My records
are in an application for which .NET would not be suitable,
but someone else might have an application for which .NET
would otherwise be suitable.