From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,9479ab5b9a099a61 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: gcc/gnat 4.1.1 bug References: <5llkrjn43w.fsf@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de> <1151439688.792173.276330@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com> <1151454134.115902.319310@y41g2000cwy.googlegroups.com> From: M E Leypold Date: 28 Jun 2006 04:15:50 +0200 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii User-Agent: Some cool user agent (SCUG) NNTP-Posting-Host: 88.72.243.222 X-Trace: news.arcor-ip.de 1151460576 88.72.243.222 (28 Jun 2006 04:09:36 +0200) X-Complaints-To: abuse@arcor-ip.de Path: g2news2.google.com!news2.google.com!news.germany.com!newsfeed.cw.net!cw.net!news-FFM2.ecrc.de!news0.de.colt.net!news-fra1.dfn.de!newsfeed.arcor-ip.de!news.arcor-ip.de!not-for-mail Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:5175 Date: 2006-06-28T04:15:50+02:00 List-Id: "Adam Beneschan" writes: > > However, it's not feasible to expect the language designers to handle > every little case and combination of cases and combination of > combinations of cases so that things do what you expect, all the time. Yep. As I see it, that is - finally - the price one just has to pay for the rather complex subtyping Ada provides. > Any change to the definition of "staticness" is going to have a > potential impact on approximately 6.023*(10**23) other places in the > RM, and all of them would need to studied before any change can be > made. And believe me, the amount of work the language designers > already do is incredible, as it is. I believe that very well. I've been learning Ada mostly from Barnes "Programming in Ada 95" and there has been many a time when I read and thought "Wow, there is a language that finally does it right" or "I'd never have been able to design this language". Even if it is probably an overestimation of one's own capabilities, Pascal, Modula, C and others just look like languages that one could have designed oneself with a bit of work and patience. Not the details of their modern incarnations, but the general outline. After all, they were designed in principle by single persons. But with Ada: Never. Where those other languages are just either nicely architected houses or grown villages, Ada is a cathedral. Beautiful, mathematical and complete. Did i alread mention that I find the ARM quite readable? Have you ever tried to read one of the C standards? > > > (In Ada 95, MDI is not allowed to be null; in Ada 2005, it is. Perhaps > > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > > > Why that? > > Anonymous access types were added in Ada 95, and the only places they Yes of course. Me stupid, I see now. :-). > were allowed were in subprogram parameters and discriminants. In both > cases, they were added for a specific purpose for which named access > types were unsuitable, and null values didn't need to be handled for > those purposes. For Ada 2005, anonymous access types were further > generalized and allowed in more places, > and it was decided it would be a good idea to allow null values; the > best solution involved changing the definition of access parameters so > that null values were allowed by default. If you're interested in more Yes, it's probably better like that. All that non allowing null here and there but elsewhere didn't keep me from shooting myself into my own foot in Ada 95, but only made me defining more named access types. But probably I'm misusing the language in a number of areas anyway. > details, check out > http://www.ada-auth.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/AIs/AI-00231.TXT . I will. I already skimmed Barnes excellent introduction into the new features of Ada 2005 some time ago and it was a delight. Regards -- Markus