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From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Interface/Implementation (was Re: Design by Contract)
Date: 1997/09/17
Message-ID: <dewar.874471283@merv>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 273255425
References: <dewar.874116292@merv> <EGL26C.38G@syd.csa.com.au>
Organization: New York University
Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.eiffel
Date: 1997-09-17T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Don said

<<Not quite. Unlike if-statements, you can actually *do without* prior
declarations. So, the analogy is a spurious one.

(Perhaps we'll hear from someone claiming they can get by with just
case-statements! :)>>


No you can't, you lose critical functionality if you do not have prior
declarations, namely the capability of mutual recursion. 

And in actual practice, the likelihood of finding Ada written without
prior declarations is NOT in fact any greater than that of finding
Ada with no if statements. I don't know if you have written Ada or not,
if you have, and have really tried to write without prior declarations,
then all I can say is that your style is

(a) peculiar
(b) undesirable
(c) dissimilar to any other Ada code I have seen

I would make the same statement about lack of if statements ( it is of
COURSE possible to use case statements everywhere instead of if statements,
but no one would do it, to me it is a perfect analogy).