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From: Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: _Type vs no _Type
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2010 13:24:09 -0400
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
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Date: 2010-11-05T13:24:09-04:00
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"Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org> writes:

> Isn't this whole subject a result of Ada being case insensitive?
>
> If Ada has been case sensitive, then one would write
>
> weapon : Weapon;

You don't need case sensitivity to allow "weapon: Weapon;".
Nor do you need separate namespaces for types, as some
have suggested.

A language could allow overloading of object and type
names, and determine what you mean by context.
And have some syntax for disambiguation when necessary
(like Ada does with qualified expressions).
In Ada, you can say "F(f(X));" and it's clear from
the syntax that the first F is a procedure name, and the
second f is a function name.  Likewise, in "not Ada",
it might be clear in "weapon: Weapon;", the first one
declares an object name, and second one is a type name.
Something would have to be done about "Mumble'First"
and the like.

I'm not advocating for or against the idea -- just pointing
out some language design issues.

By the way, I don't like case sensitivity, and I don't like
case insensitivity, either.  A better rule is the one
implemented by GNAT in its default mode (or with -gnatwe).

- Bob