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: 103376,1e3f2eac5c026e3 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-12-28 11:43:52 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.mathworks.com!nntp.TheWorld.com!not-for-mail From: Robert A Duff Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Other Ada Standards (was Re: SIGada Conference) Date: 28 Dec 2003 14:43:52 -0500 Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Message-ID: References: <468D78E4EE5C6A4093A4C00F29DF513D04B82B08@VS2.hdi.tvcabo> <3FEA5C82.8050309@noplace.com> <3FEB047A.1040100@noplace.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: pip1-5.std.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: pcls4.std.com 1072640632 465 192.74.137.185 (28 Dec 2003 19:43:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@TheWorld.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2003 19:43:52 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:3896 Date: 2003-12-28T14:43:52-05:00 List-Id: Georg Bauhaus writes: > Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: > : Or with getting rid of with clauses at all, as Robert Duff mentioned in > : passing! I never liked them. How about that? For the record, I was not *advocating* the idea of getting rid of with_clauses. I *like* with_clauses, because they tell you, right up front, what imports what. I have some minor nitpicks. I don't like using "with" as a verb (I would have chosen "use" or "import" for this purpose). It's annoying that you can't apply a with_clause to a private part. And the trivial issue this thread has been endlessly discussing -- it seems silly to me to say "with X; use X;", when "use X;" would suffice. But no, I never meant to imply that it would be a good idea to get rid of with_clauses! I just meant that *if* you allow with_clauses to be scattered all over (a bad idea, IMHO), you might as well get rid of them (an equally bad idea, IMHO). > That is what has been driving me up the wall when debugging > Java classes. Exactly! I said "some other languages" don't have something like with_clauses, but let you just refer to external stuff willy-nilly. I had Java in mind when I wrote that. I very much agree with Georg Bauhaus that that's a flaw in Java, and I disagree with Dmitry A. Kazakov that Ada should mimic that flaw. Of course, I hope we all realize that no such changes can ever be made to Ada, for compatibility and cost reasons. So we're really talking about "what if?" here, as an interesting exercise (not a realistic change proposal for Ada). What if we were designing a language from scratch, with similar goals to Ada? Would we eliminate with_clauses, or allow them to be scattered all over? I say, no. - Bob