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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!nntp-feed.chiark.greenend.org.uk!ewrotcd!newsfeed.xs3.de!io.xs3.de!news.jacob-sparre.dk!franka.jacob-sparre.dk!pnx.dk!.POSTED.rrsoftware.com!not-for-mail From: "Randy Brukardt" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Community Input for the Maintenance and Revision of the Ada Programming Language Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:56:35 -0500 Organization: JSA Research & Innovation Message-ID: References: <79e06550-67d7-45b3-88f8-b7b3980ecb20@googlegroups.com> <9d4bc8aa-cc44-4c30-8385-af0d29d49b36@googlegroups.com> <1395655516.524005222.638450.laguest-archeia.com@nntp.aioe.org> <4527d955-a6fe-4782-beea-e59c3bb69f21@googlegroups.com> Injection-Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2017 00:56:36 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: franka.jacob-sparre.dk; posting-host="rrsoftware.com:24.196.82.226"; logging-data="30381"; mail-complaints-to="news@jacob-sparre.dk" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5931 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.7246 Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:47689 Date: 2017-08-10T19:56:35-05:00 List-Id: "Lucretia" wrote in message news:4527d955-a6fe-4782-beea-e59c3bb69f21@googlegroups.com... On Thursday, 10 August 2017 06:41:56 UTC+1, G.B. wrote: > On 09.08.17 23:08, Luke A. Guest wrote: ... >> > 5) Lambdas for the people looking for new (i.e. Old) trendy features. >> >> Would you want lambdas that can be returned, or assigned? Or just >> lambdas that are unnamed expression_function-s of Ada 2012? > >This is for the language designers to determine. Well, we've discussed this, and we seem to be split about 50-50. (or maybe it is more like 30-40-30 where one of the numbers is forget the lambdas). At least some of the people think that adding simple lambdas would be bad enough advertising for Ada that we'd be better off not doing it at all in that case. Another group is rather opposed to doing a complex version because it is likely to add erroneousness to the language, or essentially force Ada implementations to switch to spaggetti stacks and require some form of garbage collection. (Some people think that a set of rules could be defined to make it safe, but I personally think they're daft -- there are so many special cases that there would be a boatload of rules, and there would be a lot of risk of missing something important. I suppose I've given away which group I'm in. :-) >I know people want this, because I've seen this in this newsgroup. I'd recommend letting those people advocate for themselves, 'cause we need to know what their needs are -- we can then see how those fit into the various proposals as they continue to be developed. I don't want to guess (I don't see any need for lambdas or generators -- they both seem like features de-jure to me -- and yes, I know they've both been around a long time). One of the main reasons for focusing on problems rather than solutions is to get some guidance on the answers to questions like this. "I need lambdas" tells us nothing about how or why someone wants to use the feature. Describing a problem and a possible solution using lambdas (or whatever feature) is more enlightening. Randy.