Re: Avoiding dispatching in procedure's with classwide types

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"Jeremiah" <jeremiah.breeden@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:ed73869e-5316-4cf3-bc76-e192f14ef506@googlegroups.com...
> I wonder why they chose to make the dot notation require a tagged type?

Mainly because there were semantic problems with allowing prefixed notation 
on some kinds of untagged types (esp. access types). Because Ada tries hard 
not to break privacy for Legality Rules, disallowing access types also 
requires disallowing any untagged private types (as the full type might have 
been access). Since essentially all ADTs should be tagged (and controlled) 
these days, just saying tagged seemed like the best way to deal with the 
issues.

I have to wonder if a "final" for a tagged type (not an operation) would be 
useful, as there's no real good reason to hide taggedness (and lots of good 
reasons not to hide it, prefix notation being exhibit A).

                                     Randy.