Re: Generic package parameters not externally visible : what's the rational ?

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

"Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> writes:

> I'm not sure that it "makes perfect sense" for them to be visible: it would 
> surely increase the chance of name collisions outside of the package. 

Shrug.  So you would end up saying "Instance.Element_Type" once in a while.

> Indeed, I find that it makes "perfect sense" for them not the visible: they 
> are not part of the package that gets instantiated. That's clear from the 
> syntax (they're outside the package).

I've always found that syntax odd, for what it's worth.
Part of the declarative region of the generic package
comes before its name.

>... You're going to say that discriminants 
> are outside of the type, too, but they're also visible. I can't argue with 
> that beyond saying that that placement of discriminants is just awful; I 
> place them in the wrong place and continually forget to include them in 
> aggregates because they're well away from the other components.
>
> The main point is, it isn't clear either way: both choices aren't ideal. So 
> one was chosen. And changing it surely would be incompatible, at the very 
> least with use-visibility (if you start adding names, those names could 
> become invisible if there are collisions) -- and it is insufficiently broken 
> to take on that incompatibility.

Agreed.  I don't think anybody suggesting "fixing" this minor problem
-- they just asked for rationale, and I speculated.

- Bob