Re: Ada 2012: In-out parameters for functions

["Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)" <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr>]

Le Fri, 03 May 2013 12:48:29 +0200, anon <anon@anon.org> a écrit:
> Since then one or more of Ada maintainers have decided to add number
> of "C" like syntax and/or coding to Ada. An example is the "conditional
> statements"

That's not that much specifically C‑like. You have the same in formal  
languages like SML where everything is an expression. That's not typical  
of C, and that's not this feature which makes C unusable as soon beyond  
the tiny scale.

> another is the the "C" function/procedure call with both
> having in out parameters.  A number of old "C" compilers ( 1980..1990s
> from Microsoft and IBM ) allowed the "in out" parameters for C
> functions.

You could already have less safe hidden side effects, and as some one  
mentioned, you could modify an argument via some indirection. In/out makes  
clear what was hidden, which is finally safer (Ada is a procedural  
language, not a pure functional language). However, I personally still  
miss the ability to remind in/in‑out/out modes at the call‑place, and  
that's the main grief I have with Ada on that topic.

> Another change is the "Copy by Reference" has been replaced by
> "Copy by Type".

What is “copy by type”?

-- 
“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.” [1]
“Structured Programming supports the law of the excluded muddle.” [1]
[1]: Epigrams on Programming — Alan J. — P. Yale University