From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,TO_NO_BRKTS_FROM_MSSP autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,8c424d8135e68278 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-12-12 07:16:55 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!hub1.nntpserver.com!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator-la!news-in-la.newsfeeds.com!news-in.superfeed.net!newsranger.com!www.newsranger.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada From: Ted Dennison References: <9v4jsj$bd1$1@infosun2.rus.uni-stuttgart.de> <9v7f26$qn2$1@infosun2.rus.uni-stuttgart.de> <3C1754BA.C4560423@informatik.uni-jena.de> <9v7q8r$1f5$1@infosun2.rus.uni-stuttgart.de> Subject: Re: Ada2005 Message-ID: X-Abuse-Info: When contacting newsranger.com regarding abuse please X-Abuse-Info: forward the entire news article including headers or X-Abuse-Info: else we will not be able to process your request X-Complaints-To: abuse@newsranger.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 10:16:35 EST Organization: http://www.newsranger.com Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 15:16:35 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:17840 Date: 2001-12-12T15:16:35+00:00 List-Id: In article <9v7q8r$1f5$1@infosun2.rus.uni-stuttgart.de>, Peter Hermann says... > >Carsten Freining wrote: >> Best example is the object oriented part, because it is not possible to have >> constants as components. > >Compiler maintainers may insert the already existing keywork "constant" >in coffee break time. Why would anyone want to? Isn't it rather stupid to allocate space in several objects to a field that will always be the same? I understand why C++ does this: they don't have packages to put their constants into. So if one wants to associate a constant with a class, there is no choice but to do it this way and waste the space. But in Ada we don't have that problem, so why do we need to duplicate their nasty hack soultion to it? >> And there is still the fixed length String. I don't think it is neccessary. > >The fixed length string is a core requirement for >bread_and_butter_softworkers. I don't think the poster has much experience with Ada strings. Anyone who truly understood Ada strings would never say something like this. In fact, its almost the *opposite* of what is true. Its fairly rare that I ever need to use Ada.Strings.* (well...some of the stuff in Ada.Strings.Fixed comes in handy fairly often :-) ). >> compatibility they both can still be available, but I think it is an ancient >> thing to still have a fixed length String were only String with exactly the >> same length can be assigned. This is part of the core misunderstanding here. Its unusual that one ever needs to "modify" a string, once its initial value is set. Most of what others may consider "modifications" are actually dynamicly arriving at the initial value, or building new strings using old ones as a base. Both of these situations can usually be handled just fine with Ada's "old-fashioned" fixed strings. I think part of the stumbling block here for beginners is that one of the exceptions to this is one of the first things they will try to do: Ada.Text_IO. Perhaps there should be a revision in there to include a version of Get_Line implemented as a function. That would allow beginners to get off on the right foot with string manipulation. This seems to be a legitimate problem. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.