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NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:35:40 -0600
From: Brian Drummond <brian_drummond@btconnect.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Embedded systems programmers worldwide earn failing grades in C
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:38:17 +0000
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Date: 2010-01-26T00:38:17+00:00
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On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:22:24 -0800, Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> wrote:

>Brian Drummond <brian_drummond@btconnect.com> writes:
>[...]
>
>A better answer IMHO is:
>
>    Seconds_Per_Year : constant := 60 * 60 * 24 * 365;
>
>Why specify subtype Natural if you don't need to?

Good point; it coerces the solution to be other than Universal Integer sooner
than needed.

>As I recall, the corresponding C question presented a similar issue.
>Ada does have a better solution, but only if you use it.

And that's the important point; what level of skill is needed to find the better
solution? 

Clearly more than mine ;-)

But then I am, so far, just an Ada dabbler. 
VHDL would have required some type specifier here; there are many similarities
between them; this is not one of them.

My feeling is that it's easier to find the right answers with Ada, but a feeling
isn't very convincing.

- Brian