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From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Not intended for use in medical,
Date: 1997/05/14
Message-ID: <dewar.863605491@merv>#1/1
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Organization: New York University
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-05-14T00:00:00+00:00
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Nick says

<<This is true, but it would also have been avoided if the standard had
simply specified procedures for obtaining the random numbers instead of
functions. I believe it is a useful paradigm to always (or almost always)
use procedures where there are side effects.

However, is it not possible to implement Generator as a general access
type, and then cause it to access an aliased variable (thus avoiding use of
the heap)?>>


To the first para, this seems another example of forcing an inconvenient
notation as a result of blindly following rules. There are many cases where
functions with side effects are the most appropriate and convenient way
of expressing things.

As to the second para, the answer is no. If you don't see why, just try it
and you will see (basically there is nowhere except the heap to allocate
the generator).