Re: += in ada

["Alexandre E. Kopilovitch" <aek@vib.usr.pu.ru>]

Robert I. Eachus wrote:

> The
> key issue was abstraction.  Some programmers just couldn't get it.  They
> could generated decent code in C or assembler, but when it came to Ada,
> they, like Joe, couldn't accept the idea of abstraction and information
> hiding.  There may have been some way to reach those programmers, but we
> didn't find it.  Anyone who gets information hiding tends to love Ada.

Well, I don't like when information is hidden from me. But I certainly like
to hide information from others, especially if I suspect that they will use
that information in wrong way (for example, devaluating or even destroy it).
And yes, as you may guess, I like to hide (or save -;) information from myself
being in some improper state. So, I tolerate this concept.

But this concept sometimes is (yes, really is) a powerful weapon in hands of
fools. There are cases where some design is simply wrong because it hides too
much information (making desired functionality impossible), and every attempt
to correct it leads only to a lecture about importance of information hiding.
That's trivial - they are so proud that they managed to hide some significant
piece of information that they become unable to listen why this information is
needed to other parts of the system.

So, what I certainly dislike is the term "information hiding". It is no much
better than infamous "total informational awareness" -;) . I like "information
structuring", I agree with various boundaries and safety checkpoints, hierachies,
access levels and rights, etc., etc., but not with simple and popular "hiding".




Alexander Kopilovitch                      aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia