RE: The old "Object.Method" syntax debate

[Lionel.DRAGHI@fr.thalesgroup.com]

| -----Message d'origine-----
| De: john@nospam.demon.co.uk [mailto:john@nospam.demon.co.uk]
...
| 
| > although using the "package" keyword leads to
| > the class/module confusion that Ada currently avoid.
| 
| That is a fair point, but it would be interesting to know how much of
| the Ada code written in under the 'object-oriented' paradigm actually
| uses a single tagged type per package. Over a period of around 3 years
| I worked in 2 separate companies where this was pretty much the case.
| In fact, in both cases the code structure was automatically generated.

I don't think it's a good practice. I find awkward to create create a child
for a class that perfectly fit in the same package.

Simple coding rules are good, but enforcing one class per package (and
calling it always "Object", or "Class") just bring Ada down to other
langages that do not have a strong modularity support and use classes for
this purpose.
Scattering strongly coupled classes on many packages lower readability. 

And there is always a better name than "Object" or "Class". 
Similarly, calling a formal "This" is, i think, a bad practice, there is
always a better name.

Automatically generated code often lead to this, not only because it
simplify the code generator, but because tools (and UML) do not provide
serious support for Ada modularity. 
Most tools don't care, they just target C++ or Java, and so are mainly
"class translator".

-- 
Lionel Draghi