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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,99ab4bb580fc34cd X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) Subject: Re: Q: access to subprogram Date: 1996/07/11 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 168313138 references: <4rb9dp$qe6@news1.delphi.com> <4rr5tu$sap@watnews1.watson.ibm.com> <4s1j3f$uro@watnews1.watson.ibm.com> <4s2heh$321@disunms.epfl.ch> organization: Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-07-11T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: "As Norm mentioned, most of these issues are documented in the "mrtcomments" available online. I hope the designers of Ada 0Y (oh-why) will read these discussions carefully for the next revision--if there is one--so that they can make a list of the fallacious arguments that will no doubt pop up again." fallacious arguments on either side :-) the same argument of implementability vs functionality will of course arise if the language is revisited, and the view in either case may have changed. On the one hand, implementors may come and say "well in retrospect that is not such a big deal", or "Gosh, this was even more critical than we though that this be left out because xxx", and of course a different cast of implementors and technologies will be around. On the other hand, programmers may come and say "turns out that was not a critical feature after all, so it did not matter that we did not put it in", or they may say "drat! I *really* find the lack of this feature a pain, and it should be fixed now, here are some examples: xxx" Different people will feel different ways (for example I find the lack of in out and out parameters for functions a real pain, and suspect I will continue to do so in the future, and that wasn't even left out befcause of implementation concerns, but rather purity concerns). One thing to notice is that once a feature is put *in*, then it never comes out again, even if programmers arrive ten years from now and say "hmm, we have found that feature useless, it can be removed". I find the obsolescent features Annex in the Ada 95 a useless fantasy, when we revise the language, we will still end up levaing these features in because of compatibility concerns (remember what happened with COBOL 8X and the attempt to remove ALTER). Given that ratchet effect, one prefers to leave features out if you are not absolutely sure they belong in!