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From: Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Ada Quality and Style book discussion
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 22:41:40 +0000
Organization: Pushface
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Anonymous Coward <spam@spam.com> writes:

> In article <m264qrhu52.fsf@grendel.local>, Simon Wright wrote:

>> As an extreme case, we had a message sending procedure declared like
>> 
>>   procedure Send (Message_In : String; To_The_Stream : Stream);
>> 
>> because from the writer's point of view Message_In was indeed an
>> input to his procedure. Of course from the reader's side it makes no
>> sense at all.

> Even better yet would be to avoid taking a position such that the
> usage is only correct or readible from one perspective and not
> another.  The excessive use of articles is at the core of problem in
> your first example.  Here's how I might code it:

Huh? The problem with my example was that the programmer had called
something Message_In because he was not thinking from the point of
view of the user of his package. I didn't have a real problem with
To_The_Stream, and I don't see why you do though personally I would
have just said To, as I indicated.

>    procedure Send (Message : in String; Target : in Stream);
>
> It's not clutsy from the inside or the outside, it's concise (with
> no distracting articles), and it doesn't mislead.  It assumes the
> audience/reader knows Ada.  If the reader doesn't know basic Ada,
> then the problem is with the reader, not the code.

I don't see what 'knowing Ada' has to do with it?