Re: Ada95 OOP Questions

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

Thomas said

"No, it doesn't look better, at least to me.
(OK, this is a 5-liner; consider a 'real' program.)

Having been working on large-scale Ada projects for years, I have learned
to avoid the use of use as much as possible."

This seems an inappropriate knee-jerk reaction to use. Thomas did you
read the thread on the issue of use and dispatching calls. Remember that
your experience on "large scale Ada projects" has been based on a  totaly
different environment than we are talking about now, namely one in which
no dynamic dispatching occurs.

Generally in Ada 83, people like to avoid use so that when they see
Pkg.xyz they know that they can find the routine that will be called
in Pkg (the spec in the spec of Pkg and the code in the body).

The trouble is that with a dispatching call, you write Pkg.xyz and it
does NOT mean that the code is in Pkg -- as Laurent noted, it does
mean the relevant spec is in the spec of Pkg, but the whole point of
dispatching is to make sure that at compile time you have no idea
where the code that will actually be called resides, indeed the code
may be in a unit that has not been written yet.

A number of people find that confusing, and so are willing to onsider
using "use" for the dispatching case.

You may or may not agree, but it is certain that your previous Ada 83
experience is not a useful guide here.