Re: Text_IO for other standard types

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

Marin says

<<    (And, P.S.: Try explaining generic instantiation to a room full of
    non-programming engineers just so you can do simple I/O exercises
    with them and see how difficult this is! They generally instantly
    hate Text_IO because it isn't as simple as what they are used to
    and they really can't cope with generic instantiations of
    Float_IO, etc. The instantaneous reaction is: "All I wanted was a
    simple little program to compute 'Y := M * X + B" and print the
    result. Why do I need all this junk getting in my way?!?!?!" You
    don't win if you turn them off from wanting to have anything to do
    with the language.)
>>

ALl these arguments miss the point entirely. Yes, it is a good idea to
have a few very standard predefined types, for all the reasons you
mention (that is why incidentally we have packages like 
Ada.Integer_Text_IO, to avoid the scenario in your point above.

But JPR's points are spot on when it comes to adding *more* standard
types. The standard predefined types are just fine for the purposes
of teaching etc. Certainly I think most people teaching Ada have found
them useful as a starting point. But the idea that it would be easier
to teach Ada if it had predefined modular types seems pretty bogus to
me. Modular types belong quite far along in the treatment, and by that
time you should certainly have introduced the notions of type abstraction!

Robert Dewar