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From: "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Rough proposal to make some generic types static
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 19:20:59 -0500
Organization: Jacob Sparre Andersen Research & Innovation
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Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:21129
Date: 2014-07-21T19:20:59-05:00
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"Victor Porton" <porton@narod.ru> wrote in message 
news:lqk2ej$3r1$4@speranza.aioe.org...
> Adam Beneschan wrote:
>
>> On Monday, July 21, 2014 2:44:35 PM UTC-7, Victor Porton wrote:
>>> Adam Beneschan wrote:
>>
>>> I am not an expert in compiler optimization, but it looks anyway
>>> impossible for me to make efficient shared code for formal scalar types
>>> of possibly different sizes.
>>
>> Some users care more about code space than execution time.  There are 
>> lots
>> of systems out there where memory space is severely limited.  And I think
>> that was part of the intended market when Ada was designed.
>
> I do not say that sharing code is not useful. I say that (in my opinion) 
> it
> is just too hard to implement (efficiently enough) in certain cases, such 
> as
> when we have a formal scalar type, because its size in bytes may vary.
>
> If it does not work anyway, we do not lose dismissing it.

Of course it works. And what do we lose by dismissing it:
(1) The possibility of having slim executables. Compare the .exe size for 
Janus/Ada and GNAT on Windows to see what I mean.
(2) Janus/Ada - there is no practical way for it ever to use macro-expanded 
generics (it would take 2-3 man years to build, and there's lots of other 
stuff that effort would be better used on).
(3) Me. If Janus/Ada goes, I leave Ada because there would be no point in 
hanging on further. (A sensible person would say that I passed that point 
10+ years ago.) Thus, Ada would need a new standards editor, ACATS manager, 
and so on. Most likely, a lot of stuff would fall out of maintenance and/or 
just get lost.

                                Randy.