Re: Pass a serial port as user data in a GTK callback handler?

[Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>]

adambeneschan@gmail.com writes:

> To expound on this a bit, since you mentioned you were overwhelmed by
> the complexity of the language: This particular inconsistency is there
> because of backward compatibility.  Ada 83 did not have access types
> that could point to variables, nor did it have anonymous access types.
> Those were added in Ada 95.  The Ada 95 designers decided that since
> Ada 83 access types didn't have to be implemented as addresses, it was
> necessary to have some way to distinguish between an access type that
> could point to a variable and an access type that was required to
> point to something allocated with "new"; in order not to break
> existing Ada 83 programs, the "access all" type was added, which I'm
> sure they hated having to do...

We didn't have to do it, and Tucker didn't want to do it, but I
convinced him it was a good idea.  I later realized I was wrong,
too late.  Mea Culpa.

>... (adding the extra keyword)

"all" was already a keyword in Ada 83, so I guess you mean
"adding it to the syntax for access types".

>..., but sometimes
> there just isn't a good solution.

- Bob