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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1116ece181be1aea X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-09-30 13:42:55 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!cyclone.bc.net!snoopy.risq.qc.ca!newsfeed.news2me.com!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Jeffrey Carter Organization: jrcarter commercial-at acm [period | full stop] org User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Is the Writing on the Wall for Ada? References: <1064527575.648809@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> <3F739C1D.4030907@attbi.com> <3F78E850.8010401@comcast.net> In-Reply-To: <3F78E850.8010401@comcast.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 20:42:54 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.184.17.34 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net 1064954574 63.184.17.34 (Tue, 30 Sep 2003 13:42:54 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 13:42:54 PDT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:34 Date: 2003-09-30T20:42:54+00:00 List-Id: Robert I. Eachus wrote: > In Ada 83, a function that returned an unbounded String (notice the > punctuation) was almost useless. In fact, there was one in Ada 80, and > it was taken out. But changes in Ada 95 made such a function much more > useful, so I think it will get put back. (It doesn't require any > changes to the compiler to add it, but some compiler vendors may do some > work to make it more efficient.) Really? I had, and made frequent use of, one. I could pass its result to a subprogram (including a To_Variable_String type subprogram*), or use it to define a constant. I found that I didn't need variable string objects (what we would now call bounded strings) very much. The things you could do with type String in Ada 83 was quite large; I think it was ignorance that resulted in people thinking that variable strings were very important. (They're nice to have, though, and I'm glad Ada now has them.) *Actually, the variable string type I used was a limited type, so I had Assign procedures; one took type String for its From parameter. -- Jeff Carter "All citizens will be required to change their underwear every half hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside, so we can check." Bananas 29