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=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,3885b7fd66a1db28 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-01-10 05:29:47 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!cyclone.bc.net!HSNX.atgi.net!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!151.164.30.35!cyclone.swbell.net!bos-service1.ext.raytheon.com!bos-service2.ext.raytheon.com.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Wes Groleau Reply-To: wesgroleau@despammed.com User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826 X-Accept-Language: en,es-MX,es,pt,fr-CA,fr MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Why is Ada NOT a good choice for a beginner to programming? References: <8ivo1vo5ir3piqsck4ondj0cuo47g426kf@4ax.com> <9gMS9.483613$GR5.189928@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 08:29:33 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 151.168.133.155 X-Complaints-To: news@ext.ray.com X-Trace: bos-service2.ext.raytheon.com 1042205387 151.168.133.155 (Fri, 10 Jan 2003 08:29:47 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 08:29:47 EST Organization: Raytheon Company Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:32880 Date: 2003-01-10T08:29:33-05:00 List-Id: > One complaint he had was that it be possible to define a Length > using derived types and still have "*" return values of type Length, > when it should return an area. He had a point, hadn't he? Sure. I didn't say he's always wrong. Just that after reading his resounding condemnation of features I _know_ are valuable, it will never work to quote Dijkstra to me on a topic I don't know about. > OTOH, with only structural equivalence of types, and no way to derive > both an integral length type and an integral area type, that are really > diferent, how can you build areas into your types, such that the compiler > will prevent use of values of the wrong type? This has been solved in at least three different ways in Ada in discussions on this very news group. None of the solutions are 100% satisfactory. However, none of them are really bad, either.