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Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Your wish list for Ada 202X
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Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 23:25:31 -0700
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Date: 2014-03-25T23:25:31-07:00
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On 25-Mar-14 14:41, Stoik wrote:
> I think that even a casual user of Ada should be able to influence somehow  the new version of Ada. I wonder what is high on your list of wishes 
for Ada
> 202X?
>
> I suspect many of the proposals could be tested in GNAT before being
> introduced (or rejected) in the new version. One could add a switch to
> GNAT indicating that we want to use some of the experimental features.

(1)
I think we should look at simplifying the standard packages.

Consider also the [[wide_]wide_]string packages and the relationship to 
[[wide_]wide_]character -- it would be very nice (as well as aiding 
maintainability) to have the *_String [and character-handling] packages 
be generics instantiated on the proper Character type.

(2)
I also think that the INTERFACE construct could be more beneficial 
introducing properties (virtual fields; possibly with IN / IN OUT / OUT 
modes) and a way to delegate them... Delphi has an IMPLEMENTS keyword 
which allows you to have a field (or property) that implements the maned 
interface ( see: http://stackoverflow.com/a/6067165 ) -- IIRC you can 
also do "partial delegation" and resolution so that, given two 
INTERFACEs I1 and I2 which both have "function Count( Input : I* ) : 
Integer" and you could use both w/o any great gymnastics.

type
  TObj = Class(I1, I2)
   private
     FCount : Integer;              {Internal count for something.}
     FItems : Array of TSomeObject; {Dynamically sized array.}
     function Get_length : Integer implements I2.Count;
   public
     {This treats the read of count as a function-call.}
     property Count   : Integer read FCount implements I1.Count;
  end; {TObj}

{...}

function TObj.Get_length : Integer;
begin
   Get_Length := Length( FItems );
end;


(3)
Third, I think it would be good to extend the FOR loop once again; this 
time giving access to the cursor involved, this way the index can be 
retrieved in the new-style loops.

-- Given Table : array (1..20, 1..20) of Positive we wish to populate it
-- with Pascal's Triangle.
For Element of Table loop
   -- We remember that to construct the triangle there are two rules:
   -- 1) If the row or the column is 1, then the value of the cell is 1,
   -- 2) Otherwise, the value is the sum of the its predecessor in the
   --    row and its predecessor in the column.
   Element:= (if Element'Index(1) = 1 or Element'Index(2) = 1 then
              else
                     Table(Element'Index(1)-1,Element'Index(2)  )
                   + Table(Element'Index(1)  ,Element'Index(2)-1)
             );
end loop;