Re: Introducing memcache-ada, a memcached client in Ada

[Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org>]

Jeffrey Carter <spam.jrcarter.not@spam.not.acm.org> writes:

> The type Flags and the Set_Flags parameters of that type are not
> documented in the spec; if possible, they should be. In particular,
> the effect of the default value for Set_Flags should be described.
>
> The meaning of the expiration parameters, and especially of their
> default values, should be documented. The default of zero would seem
> to mean immediate expirations, which doesn't seem very useful.
>
> The meaning of the Boolean return values from some of the functions
> (which also appear as parameters) is unclear and should be documented.

I think these are "symptoms" of a thin (thinnish) binding. In
particular, the type Expiration and its use is rather non-Ada style. Is
it really the case that the memcached server won't allow you to specify
a retention period greater than 30 days? (just checked -- yes -- well,
the Google Python API says "up to 1 month", close enough I suppose :-).

I don't see why Set appears as two functions & one procedure? Would it
be sensible to say, perhaps,

   procedure Set (....); -- no expiry specified

   procedure Set (....;
                  Expiring_After : Duration);

   procedure Set (....;
                  Expiring_At : Ada.Calendar.Time);


Why is type Connection tagged? I guess you have some expansion plans for
it?!