Re: Constant as anonymous functions : the outer space beast is back

[Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>]

"Hibou57 (Yannick Duch�ne)" <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr> writes:

> If it's not good for constants, so why should it be good for
> functions ?

You're right -- it would make sense to allow overloading for constants.
In fact, it would make sense to allow overloading for everything.
But you'd want to make the resolution rules weak, so that anything
that is likely to be confusing to programmers would be ambiguous and
therefore illegal.

Ada's resolution rules are too strong as it is.  For example:

    F(...).all := X;

I find it odd that the type of X is used to resolve which
F you're calling.

Another point: implicit hiding is evil.  It causes Beaujolais-like
effects.  Ada 95 makes it worse, because of child packages -- the
hiding can cross library unit boundaries.  Subunits already had
similar problems in Ada 83, but subunits are less useful, and
therefore rarer, than child packages.

- Bob