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From: dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: others clause
Date: 1996/09/03
Message-ID: <dewar.841801496@schonberg>#1/1
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references: <INFO-ADA%96082914113458@LISTSERV.NODAK.EDU>
 <3227AAA6.67C9@ghgcorp.com> <50d4fc$elf@fozzie.sun3.iaf.nl>
organization: Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-09-03T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


"Mike Bishop (mbishop@ghgcorp.com) wrote:
`` In fact, using others is a good idea even when all values are
   explicitly covered. If you add more values to the type but forget to
   modify the case statement, you can still handle the new values in
   the others choice. ''"

This seems a terrible idea to me. One of the great advantages of the
case statement in Ada is precisely the check that you have explicitly
covered every alternative.

I prefer to avoid others choices whereever possible, and instead write
out the list of alternatives that corresponds to what naturally might
otherwise be written as others. Then each time you add a case, your
compiler forces you to visit each case statement and think about whether
or not it belongs in the "others" branch.