Re: What is the point of Private?

[Jeffrey Carter <spam@spam.com>]

Simon Smith wrote:

> Why is it there? I am sure I have heard talk that its to stop the client 
> from seeing exactly how the data is stored/manipulated however if people 
> really did want to know this wouldn't they just scroll down the ada spec 
> file and find out for themselves or am I missing something here?

No, it was there originally to put stuff that the compiler needs to know 
to compile client code, but that the client code doesn't need to know to 
use the package. (Actually, the compiler probably doesn't need to know 
that stuff, and it could be put in the body, but in the late 1970's 
Ada's designers weren't willing to accept the extra work and overhead 
that would entail.)

Now, it also serves to put stuff that will be visible to the private 
parts and bodies of children, but not to anyone else.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Beyond 100,000 lines of code you
should probably be coding in Ada."
P. J. Plauger
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