Re: Pre-condition vs. Post-condition

[jls@rutabaga.Rational.COM (Jim Showalter)]

>>That's not the issue: default initialization, particularly of private
>>types, is for the benefit of the SUPPLIER, not the client.

>Right. As long as the client program(mer) doesn't make hidden assumptions
>in the client code about what the default value is.

But a programmer who makes such assumptions is a doofus. I don't want
to remove features in the language that are useful for good programmers
just to make it harder for doofus programmers to act like doofuses: I
want fewer doofus programmers to have jobs. Just because it is possible
to write an erroneous program in Ada (and I submit that depending on
default values in private types is highly erroneous) is no reason to
damn the features that make such erroneousness possible. This is not
a language issue: it's an education issue.
--
***** DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed herein are my own, except in
      the realm of software engineering, in which case I've borrowed
      them from incredibly smart people.