Re: Offical Ada FAQ

[Brian May <bam@snoopy.apana.org.au>]

>>>>> "David" == David Botton <david@botton.com> writes:

    David> Strong typing can be carried too far, and some amount of
    David> implicit conversion is essential to make OOP palatable. But
    David> note that in Ada 95, even with OOP, we don't allow implicit
    David> conversions that truncate the extension part of a record
    David> (this is a relatively common mistake in C++ when passing
    David> parameters by value).

I would be curious to know more about this common mistake in C++...

    David> Question: Why doesn't Ada use 'dot' notation for OO?

Suggestion: Add reference to how this will change in Ada 2005.

    David> Question: Are classes first class objects?

Suggestion: Add definition of what is a "first class object".

    David> Question: Can you access super methods?

    David> Answer: Do you mean "call the operation of the type's
    David> parent"?

    David> The answer is yes, by converting the object to the parent
    David> type, and then invoking the operation.

Does this work with both "in", "in out" and "out" parameters?

For out parameters, what happens if the derived type has extra fields
not in the parent? Is this legal? If it is legal are the extra fields
defined?

    David> Question: How do I print an Integer, Float, enumeral using
    David> Text_IO or otherwise obtain a string representation of a
    David> scalar type?

The built in methods for integers may not always be sufficient. For
example, if you want to print 0001 (integer) or 01.0100
(float). References to a package that can meet these extended
requirements might be a good idea...

    David> Question: Does Ada have an XML parser?

    David> Answer: There are a few Ada XML parsers available.

    David> See http://www.adapower.com/reuse

    David> On Windows, you can also use the MSXML COM object via
    David> GNATCOM

Why not xmlada? http://libre.act-europe.fr/xmlada/

    David> Question: Does Ada have multiple inheritance?

I think Ada 2005 was going to add an "interface" mechanism which will
add another way of doing this.

    David> Question: Can I create Web Services and SOAP objects with
    David> Ada?

    David> Answer: Yes, see AWS

Would a reference to writing Ada CGI scripts be useful here?

    David> Question: Can I use CORBA with Ada?

    David> Answer: Yes, see AdaPower.com: Ada Libraries: Distributed
    David> Computing

Or Glade: http://libre.act-europe.fr/glade/
-- 
Brian May <bam@snoopy.apana.org.au>