From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID
	autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
X-Google-Thread: 103376,2afac1a4161c7f35
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Two simple language questions (plural types)
Date: 1998/01/10
Message-ID: <dewar.884450142@merv>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 314680878
References: <68uq34$7tk@tomquartz.niestu.com>
 <mheaney-ya023680000701980209270001@news.ni.net> <697p89$b5j@top.mitre.org>
X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.nyu.edu
X-Trace: news.nyu.edu 884450395 11570 (None) 128.122.140.58
Organization: New York University
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1998-01-10T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Michael said

<<Almost every type reads better when declared to be plural. Those things
that are singletons are declared in a manner where the OBJECT is SINGULAR,
and the TYPE is PLURAL, such as:
     color: colors; -- to be read as: color is of type colors
>>

This is of course purely a matter of taste despite Michael's apparent
intention to put the argument on objective grounds.

For my tastes, I find the use of plurals to be highly (almost deliberately)
confusing.

Here the variable color is said to be something to do with colors, which
to me strongly implies that it is a set of colors or somesuch.

Yes, I see how people could get used to the (to me rather odd) convention
that the intention was always to understand that 

  x : nodes;

means that x takes on one of many possible values of nodes, but I still
don't like it, and it is certainly a convention that we neither encourage
not even permit in the GNAT project. A plural there always means that
there is some kind of collective structure.

  x : node;

one node

  x : nodes;

some kind of collection of nodes