Re: Text_IO, was: Re: Something I don't understand

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Sun, 16 Feb 2014 09:08:20 +0000 (UTC), Simon Clubley wrote:

> In a modified Ada, do you still see a role for Text_IO as it stands
> (with additional I/O package(s) implementing your desired changes) or do
> you think Text_IO should be outright replaced ?

Text_IO should be replaced because the design of Character/String was
wrong. It is wrong to have Character, Wide_Character, Wide_Wide_Character.
It is wrong not to separate encoding from characters. The punishment for
that is a combinatorial explosion of variants as observed in Text_IO.

Other stuff hated by many is the page formatting Text_IO does. This is
basically the same problem as above, of not using the language type system
properly.

When it was finally noted, stream I/O (Text_Stream) was introduced. It was
a bit strange that Text_Stream sat on top of Text_IO. Most OSes where this
would reflect the reality are gone (e.g. VMS). In Unix it is rather
formatting that sits on streams. Anyway again, that should be reflected by
type relationships rather than by a patchwork of calls returning access(!)
types.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de