Re: Why not using [] instead of () for array?

[Dale Stanbrough <dale@cs.rmit.edu.au>]

Adrian Hoe wrote:

> "Why not use [] instead of () for array in Ada?"
> 
> Two reasons for [] is preferred to ():
> 
> 1. More clarity, certainly leads to more readability.
> 
> 2. More distinguishable from functions parameters and leads to 1.


I've done a bit of Ada programming, and never really found it to be
a problem. Generally array accessing is fairly local in scope, and
you can see/know where the array declaration is.

For larger programs you tend to hide arrays behind functions/procedures
(you can pragma inline them if needs be).

In the end it's not going to lead to errors because any ambiguity 
will be picked up and flagged by the compiler.

The only real reason for () vs [] in Ada is historical.


Dale