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-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1116ece181be1aea X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-09-15 19:52:32 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Sender: mheaney@MHEANEYX200 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Is the Writing on the Wall for Ada? References: From: Matthew Heaney Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 02:52:31 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 65.110.133.134 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net 1063680751 65.110.133.134 (Mon, 15 Sep 2003 19:52:31 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 19:52:31 PDT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:42557 Date: 2003-09-16T02:52:31+00:00 List-Id: Hyman Rosen writes: > Matthew Heaney wrote: > > The multiple views idiom in Ada95 doesn't preclude that at all. > > It's fine, but what's wrong with letting the language handle the > plumbing for you, instead of making you do it yourself? And the > bit about access discriminants getting initialized with the address > of the object containing them seems a little gimmicky to me, compared > to arbitrary constructors. Ada95 doesn't have MI. It will never have MI. So what to do? The multiple views idiom gets the job done, without MI. Yes, you have to build a little bit of infrastructure yourself, that would otherwise be done for you a language with full-blown MI, but it works. I happen to think that access disciminants are quite elegant. They are quite general and powerful. Hardly "gimmicky" at all. In fact you could do something similar in C++, something Tom Cargill argued 10 years ago, when he was fighting the inclusion of MI into C++.