Re: Introductory Ada Programming Book

[raph.amiard@gmail.com]

Le jeudi 5 janvier 2017 07:36:53 UTC+1, J-P. Rosen a écrit :
> >> Ada is, alas, a one-pass language, so things need to be prototyped if
> >> you're going to refer to them before they're defined.
> > 
> > This is generally true, and the areas of the language where it's not
> (aspects) are full of gotchas. While it's not always true, my feeling is
> that there *was* a strong push to keep Ada compilable by a one pass
> compiler (which GNAT is, in broad strokes).
> > 
> I don't think that one pass was ever a requirement for Ada.

Ok, the fact remains that Ada today is compilable by a one pass compiler (proof: GNAT), which would not be possible if you added some features common in other languages. Just to be clear: I don't think it's a defect.

> Claiming
> that some things are "unfortunately" the way they are to make compilers
> naively simpler sends a wrong message, and is unfair to the huge work
> performed by compilers.

You're inferring 80% of the meaning from the author's original statement here. He did not write most of what you have written, except for "unfortunately", which is a user perspective. Users have the write to disagree with language design choices, luckily !