Re: Ada2005

["Mark Lundquist" <no.spam@getalife.com>]

I ("Mark Lundquist" <mlundquist2@attbi.com>) wrote in message
news:Q_MR7.13041$7y.146471@rwcrnsc54...
>
> Here's an interesting thing to think about... Ada is a language that (a)
is
> lexically scoped, and (b) unifies encapsulation with namespace control,
> where the namespace is hierarchial (public and private child packages).
So
> ironically, Ada allows for tighter encapsulation than that provided by
flat
> class-oriented languages.  (It also allows for looser encapsulation, by
> permitting object declarations in package specs, arguably a Bad Thing).

Actually, I can take back the last part of that.  Flat class-oriented
languages that allow classwide object declarations (e.g. static data members
in C++ and Java) are no better off in this way than Ada.

(Smalltalk provides a higher level of encapsulation for objects themselves,
since all objects are either class or instance variables, which are private.
But Smalltalk is also flat, so it doesn't have the level of encapsulation
for classes themselves that Ada has).

-- mark
http://home.attbi.com/~mlundquist2/consulting