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!newsfeed2.dallas1.level3.net!news.level3.com!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: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:57:02 -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 1208005022 757 192.74.137.71 (12 Apr 2008 12:57:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@TheWorld.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:57:02 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Gnus/5.1008 (Gnus v5.10.8) Emacs/21.3 (irix) Cancel-Lock: sha1:Kt/OmDnuVtrKvJr2Wg9ojMH7jTI= Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:20888 Date: 2008-04-12T08:57:02-04:00 List-Id: John McCabe writes: > Robert A Duff wrote: > >>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. > > Bugger - where did I get that idea from then (have to admit, it's been > a while since I paid a lot of attention to Ada!) Perhaps from the fact that 'in out' and 'out' parameters are illegal for functions. As Robert Dewar likes to point out, the effect of this rule is that functions can have side effects, so long as they are not properly documented. ;-) Functions can modify global variables if they are visible. Functions can also modify data via pointers. - Bob