Re: Ada 2005 puzzle

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

"Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote in message 
news:1f9q6vk5z2r3t$.1hayo9rmxfwu7$.dlg@40tude.net...
...
> (I never doubted that limited aggregates were broken, but I didn't think
> that nobody intended them to work.)

We intended them to work. It's just that we found out after the fact that 
the extension aggregate case is very difficult to implement on most 
compilers.

(It's no problem for Janus/Ada, which uses a fixed size for all objects; any 
dynamically sized part is handled using implicit pointer and allocation. But 
that solution is hated by almost everyone.)

My personal feeling always was that this restriction was not acceptable, but 
I couldn't explain why. Thus, I think it would be a good idea to send your 
problem to Ada-Comment, so that the ARG can consider the problem. I'm pretty 
sure that your example is reasonable in all respects, and I can't figure out 
any good reason that you shouldn't be able to do it.

(With the obvious exception that "limited" almost never is really what you 
want in Ada, and I don't think that ever could change. I try to use 
non-limited types for almost everything; clever use of Adjust fixes most 
problems. That's why windows are non-limited in Claw, for example.)

                                            Randy.