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From: Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: the Ada mandate,
 and why it collapsed and died (was): 64 bit  addressing and OOP
Date: 27 Apr 2003 12:21:33 -0400
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
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Dr Chaos <mbkennelSPAMBEGONE@NOSPAMyahoo.com> writes:

> Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com> wrote:
> > "Chad R. Meiners" <crmeiners@hotmail.com> writes:
> >> Array slicing is a wonderfully useful feature.  I use this feature in almost
> >> every program of mine.
> > 
> > Really!?  I think of array slicing as a pretty minor feature of Ada,
> > which causes a lot of trouble for compiler writers, that could be
> > dispensed with.  After all, you could write a function that grabs those
> > components.
>  
> > I'm thinking particularly of slices as L-values.  Do you ever use that?
> 
> Ask everybody who likes MATLAB:
> 
> in other words "yes".

Sorry; I know nothing of MATLAB.  Perhaps you could give an example of
why array slicing (as an L-value!) is so useful.  I don't doubt that it
is (in MATLAB and Fortran).

> And it's in Fortran 90/95, for similar reasons.  

Well, Fortran's array-slicing capabilities are more powerful than Ada's.
My comment that slicing-as-L-value is a frill was specific to Ada.

>...Note that F90 was
> designed after Ada.

The latest version of Ada was designed in the period 1990 to 1995 or so.
I would think F90 is roughly the same vintage.

> Getting arrays right definitely helps lower bugs, because
> off-by-one counting in iteration are frequent source of
> errors.

Indeed.

- Bob

P.S. Sorry, I'm disobeying your followup-to.  I'm reading this in
comp.lang.ada, and would otherwise never see replies.