Re: Optional body for nested generic

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"Robert A Duff" <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com> wrote in message 
news:wcc8vpg1wje.fsf@shell01.TheWorld.com...
> "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> writes:
...
>>...Janus/Ada had given an error message in this case, and I
>> had to spend a week or so figuring out how to change our binder so that 
>> it
>> could silently (other than a warning) drop the offending unit.
>
> OK, that's proof of my statement [1] above.  You did it right.
> You should have disputed the test, because it's truly idiotic
> to silently ignore things like that.  (And I claim that the
> Ada 83 RM didn't really require the bad behavior -- I rewrote
> chapter 10 mainly to CLARIFY that fact, not to change it.)

The test was disputed (not by us, I don't think), and the ARG at the time 
confirmed it (I'm pretty sure there is an Ada 83 AI to this effect, but I'm 
too lazy to look it up right now). Ada 83 compilers had no choice but to 
follow this behavior.

So the Ada 83 RM (at least as interpreted by the ARG and/or AVO) did require 
this behavior. The ACVC test was confirmed as correct.

I think you could make a good case that the Ada 83 ARG was nuts in this case 
(and several other cases as well) -- but that doesn't change the history. 
The reason Ada 95 has this rule, explicitly, was to overrule that previous 
horrible ARG decision. You could not have done that by interpretation alone.

So I continue to maintain that the rule was necessary, even if the reason 
that was the case was more political than technical.

                                      Randy.