Re: parameterless generics?

[dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Brian said

"Does anybody have a reason to use a generic (package or
subprogram) without a parameter?  The language (Ada 83 at least)
seems to allow it, but everytime the generic is instantiated it
would produce an identical copy.  Comments?
"

Such generics are often very useful, and very common in Ada code. You
missed one critical point. Each instantiation gets its own set of
package level variables.

For example a random number generic could read

generic
function random return float;

and each instance would have a separate seed