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From: "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Ada syntax questions
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2020 19:04:43 -0600
Organization: JSA Research & Innovation
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"Keith Thompson" <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:87r1nkb0lj.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com...
...
> Function calls and array indexing can be substituted for one another
> in *some* circumstances, but not it all.  But they really are very
> different things.  A function call executes user-written code,
> and may have side effects; an array indexing expression refers to
> an object.  An array indexing expression can appear on the LHS of
> an assignment; a function call can't.

This is false in modern languages with user-defined indexing (Ada and C++ 
included), since what looks like array indexing can actually be implemented 
with a function call.

Not having variable returning functions is a flaw in Ada, IMHO. These days, 
I think there are still too many special cases in Ada. If I was starting 
today, () would be a function call, and . would be selection/dereferencing, 
and there would not be anything else (which means getting rid of type 
conversions, array indexing and slicing, and anything else I've forgotten 
about). Compilers are smart enough to generate better code when they know 
something about the function involved (including if it is that of a 
predefined container). Doing that would allow overloading to be more general 
and to allow for the complication of variable returning functions.

                            Randy.
.