From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,808505c9db7d5613 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: cm@mihalis.demon.co.uk (Chris Morgan) Subject: Re: Silliness (was: Looking for good Ada95 book) Date: 1996/11/06 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 194916748 x-nntp-posting-host: mihalis.demon.co.uk references: <55955a$n04@felix.seas.gwu.edu> organization: at home newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-11-06T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <55mcmd$63c@krusty.irvine.com> adam@irvine.com (Adam Beneschan) writes: On the other hand, Ada programmers tend to end all their statements with semicolons, which means they aren't really statements at all, since a semicolon implies that there's a second half of the sentence coming up; but that never seems to happen in Ada. You can read a whole program and keep seeing semicolons, which means there's more to come, but then you hit the last semicolon and there's nothing more after it and you end up wondering, did the programmer intend to say something more and just forget? So you're just left there hanging. Oh, well. I suppose there are worse things; after all, ending a sentence with a semicolon isn't half as wishy-washy as ending one with an ellipsis . . . But you are forgetting about the requirement to link the program. Various units can be linked as the main program, and indeed multiple units can be visible to the compiler each of which could be linked. Whilst there is some uncertainty, they all naturally break off mid-sentence in case they are merely library units to be linked with some other main unit. So, you do a link and tell it to use, say, my_main_proc as the main unit. The never-ending sentence you mention is terminated by this nomination, so conceptually the linker puts a full stop (period for Americans) in place of the last semicolon of this unit and then completes the link with a nice well-formed program sentence. Chris -- Chris Morgan http://www.mihalis.demon.co.uk/