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From: "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: What evil would happen?
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 13:52:38 -0500
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Date: 2003-07-14T13:52:38-05:00
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"Wojtek Narczynski" <wojtek@power.com.pl> wrote in message
news:5ad0dd8a.0307111151.4a08f95a@posting.google.com...
> Hello,
>
> What would happen if a procedure could return a value like a function,
> or a function could accept an out parameter? Would it make procedures
> less procedural? Or impure functions even less impure? Or is there a
> reason for this in compiler implementation details?
>
> I feel like with SML like tagged union datatypes I'd be done long
> ago... Is there an AI for this maybe?

No evil would happen. The world would continue. :-)

However, its clear that it is never going to happen (see the result of
AI-323). There is enough opposition to the idea that it could never get a
consensus.

So functions in Ada will continue to be able to have side effects, just not
be able to show them in their specification. (A paraphrase of Robert Dewar).

Note that the Object.Operation notation (if approved) will help that for
tagged types, as that notation allows using access parameters without
explicitly saying 'Access. (So, for a function with the first parameter as
an access parameter, the call would look the same as an IN parameter).

                  Randy.

P.S. Do we have to discuss this AGAIN?