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-Thread: 103376,3a1c64628a09855b X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.glorb.com!newscon02.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.net!newsfeed-00.mathworks.com!nntp.TheWorld.com!not-for-mail From: Robert A Duff Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Lack of formal syntax undermines Ada Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:45:07 -0400 Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: shell01.theworld.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: pcls6.std.com 1207950307 12140 192.74.137.71 (11 Apr 2008 21:45:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@TheWorld.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:45:07 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Gnus/5.1008 (Gnus v5.10.8) Emacs/21.3 (irix) Cancel-Lock: sha1:3aVEf3zeqioPKuwhvgM2RJJxp7k= Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:20884 Date: 2008-04-11T17:45:07-04:00 List-Id: John McCabe writes: > As I understand it, that was deliberate; Ada's feature that functions > may not have side-effects ... Ada functions can have side effects. >...means that whether Y is a function or an > array is irrelevant to the user as long as the result is valid. It is > also related to the separation of interface from implementation. Write > the implementation as an array to start with, e.g. for unit test > purposes, then it can be replaced with a function without having to > change the client who uses this interface. Right, that's the theory. But it only works for some functions, and some arrays. - Bob