Re: spec/body/rep (Was: Compilation error (GNAT bug?))

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

"G.B." <rm-dash-bau-haus@dash.futureapps.de> wrote in message 
news:5384b302$0$6663$9b4e6d93@newsspool3.arcor-online.net...
...
> When the compiler knows about "representation units" (I think Bob Duff
> once mentioned such a thing using this name), and the language ties
> them to (the private part of) a unit, then at least programmers will
> have something explicit and reliable, issues notwithstanding:

But this solves nothing. There has to be some implementation-defined (or 
project-defined) way of selecting which "representation unit" is selected 
for a particular compilation. And that's the problem, with any of these 
solutions. (I agree with Dmitry about the problem of keeping the versions of 
the packages in sync. I believe this has to be solved by the 
version-control; one of the reasons that I find typical VCs useless is that 
they refuse to solve that problem and solve other unlikely problems 
instead.)

In any case, adding a new kind of unit would require sweeping changes to the 
language standard and to implementations. It would require a pretty 
significant problem to even consider such a change. We did in fact consider 
that for the mutually-dependent package problem, but ultimately decided to 
avoid it in favor of the "virtual" limited view solution. If we're unwilling 
to use such a solution to solve a critical problem, I can hardly imagine 
using it to solve a problem that's not hard to solve with some tools (as 
with Dmitry's project manager solution) or discipline (as in J-P's comment 
in or out of a library-level renames).

                                Randy.