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From: "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: float with 24-bit resolution
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 20:43:42 -0500
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Date: 2003-09-03T20:43:42-05:00
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> Matthew Heaney <matthewjheaney@earthlink.net> writes:
>
> >    Null_Object : T := null;
>
> > I find the latter convention confusing, because it suggests that if
> > the initialization part were omitted, then the object wouldn't be
> > initialized.  But that would be incorrect.

*I* find
     Null_Object : T;
confusing. A maintenance programmer probably doesn't know the class of
object that T represents, and the lack of an initialization looks like a
bug. You could "fix" that with a comment, but an explicit initializer works
just as well. (The lack of "constant" is also suspicious here; if the object
is a variable, it probably shouldn't be named "Null anything", because it
could change.)

After all, I often have:
    Null_Object : constant T := ...;
in my programs, where T could be any type.

If the object is a variable, it probably ought to be initialized with
something useful.

But I suspect being consistent is more important than any particular rule.

                   Randy.