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From: "Jeffrey R. Carter" <spam.not.jrcarter@acm.not.spam.org>
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Subject: Re: Avatox 1.0: Trouble with encoding in Windows
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Date: 2006-09-14T21:16:01+00:00
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Martin Krischik wrote:
> 
> Well, that effectivly means we all need to compile with:
> 
>          "-gnatiw",                          -- Wide-character codes
> allowed in identifiers
>          "-gnatW8",                          -- UTF-8 encoding
> 
> in order to be fully ASIS compatible. Good to know that both VIM and
> new GPS 4.0 support Utf-8.

I'm sure no one will agree with me, but I don't see the value of 
allowing characters outside 'a' .. 'z' & 'A' .. 'Z' in Ada identifiers. 
Ada is designed to read like English, so in most cases identifiers 
should be in English.

if Something then

makes sense, but

if Kelko_Koza then

doesn't (and it doesn't even use characters not generally found in English).

Of course, this argues that each language should have its own set of 
reserved words. In many cases that could be achieved by a preliminary 
translation phase that converts the reserved words into Ada's English 
reserved words. For a truly international language, instead of reserved 
words, maybe we should have symbols:

? Kelko_Koza =>
    ...
?? Koza_2 =>
    ...
?=>
    ...
?<;

That smacks too much of C for my tastes.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
Monty Python's Flying Circus
22