Re: Ada2005

["Mark Lundquist" <mlundquist2@attbi.com>]

"Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
news:nxKR7.58838$xS6.95364@www.newsranger.com...
> In article <9v7q8r$1f5$1@infosun2.rus.uni-stuttgart.de>, Peter Hermann
says...
> >
> >Carsten Freining <freining@informatik.uni-jena.de> 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.

It'd be better if others would study RM 3.7 during their 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.

No... you can do this

in Foo.h:

    class Foo {
        static int i;
        .
        .

in Foo.C (typically):

    int Foo::i = something;

It's kind of wack, but we do have this in C++.

I think what the OP means is something like a const data member in C++.  If
so, he should learn about discriminants.

> >> 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.

Yes to all of the above.

>
> 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.

...such as GNAT's Ada.Strings.Unbounded.Text_IO.Get_Line.  I think it would
be great if that were added to the standard in a language revision.

> That would allow beginners to get off on the right
> foot with string manipulation. This seems to be a legitimate problem.
>

Agreed!

-- mark