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-Thread: 103376,cae92f92d6a1d4b1 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news4.google.com!feeder.news-service.com!94.75.214.39.MISMATCH!aioe.org!news.tornevall.net!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Jeffrey Carter Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada.Execution_Time Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 20:31:59 -0700 Organization: TornevallNET - http://news.tornevall.net Message-ID: References: <4d05e737$0$6980$9b4e6d93@newsspool4.arcor-online.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: ce2825946b718a228446be3c8f24488c Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: 682c678c41d04878166242a56b72741d X-Complaints-To: abuse@tornevall.net User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101208 Thunderbird/3.1.7 X-Complaints-Language: Spoken language is english or swedish - NOT ITALIAN, FRENCH, GERMAN OR ANY OTHER LANGUAGE! In-Reply-To: X-UserIDNumber: 1738 X-Validate-Post: http://news.tornevall.net/validate.php?trace=682c678c41d04878166242a56b72741d X-Complaints-Italiano: Non abbiamo padronanza della lingua italiana - se mandate una email scrivete solo in Inglese, grazie X-Posting-User: 0243687135df8c4b260dd4a9a93c79bd Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:16890 Date: 2010-12-13T20:31:59-07:00 List-Id: On 12/13/2010 03:25 PM, Randy Brukardt wrote: > > The logic is that you need a "null;" statement when there is nothing in some > list of statements. A pragma (or label) is not "nothing", so the requirement > for "null;" is illogical in those cases. The logic I recall from watching videos of Ichbiah, Barnes, and Firth presenting Ada (80) at the Ada Launch was that a null statement indicates that the sequence of statements (SOS) was intentionally null; it was contrasted to the single semicolon used for the null statement in some other languages, which is easily missed when reading, easily accidentally deleted when editing, and generally considered a Bad Thing. Another justification is that it prevents the reader from wondering if something was accidentally deleted. As such, a pragma might be "something" and as such not require a null statement, but I would disagree about a label. A label by itself would make me wonder what happened to the statement it labels. Given the argument that the null statement is needed when there is no other SOS, that SOS refers to executable statements, and that neither a pragma nor a label are considered such, I would guess this is contrary to the intention of the original language designers. I so like the idea that something explicit is required when a region deliberately contains nothing that I'd like to see "null;" as a declaration that is required when a declarative region contains nothing else. -- Jeff Carter "He didn't get that nose from playing ping-pong." Never Give a Sucker an Even Break 110