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From: Martin Dowie <martin.dowie@btopenworld.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: String filtering
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 14:14:47 +0000 (UTC)
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Date: 2005-10-02T14:14:47+00:00
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Steve Whalen wrote:
>>I'm an ARG member, and I agree with Randy here ...
>>I have a feeling that more than 50% would allow 'out' parameters on functions,
>>but the minority who disagree feel much more strongly about it.
>>By the way, Tucker disagrees with Randy and I on this point.
> 
> 
> I'm curious why you and Randy and others want "out" parameters to be
> allowed in functions.  Since I have great respect for you and Randy
> (and Tucker), I'd like to hear more about why you all want this.
> 
> I seem to have been brainwashed into thinking that functions with side
> effects of any kind were a "bad thing", especially in a language like
> Ada.

I think that's part of the problem - function are allowed to have side 
effects in Ada already, so why not just allow 'in out' and allow side 
effects on parameters?

If functions having side effects were /that/ bad why allow them at all?

-- Martin