Re: Dereferencing and style guides

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

Natasha Kerensikova <lithiumcat@gmail.com> writes:

> I think somehow I like to have my statements as context-free as
> possible. So when I see Some_Variable.all I don't have to remember that
> Some_Variable is actually an access value rather than a full-fledged
> object.

I agree with you that dereferencing should be explicit.  Aliasing is
dangerous.  It's good to have a reminder, "There might be other things
pointing at this thing."  If dereference had a decent syntax,
like "^" in Pascal, I would use it always.  And I think the language
should require that.  (A pure functional language is different!)

However, the ".all" syntax is just plain weird.  "All what?"  It makes
no sense to me.  And it's too verbose (should be a single character).
So I don't use it, except when it's required, or in rare cases where I
think it's very important to emphasize the aliasing issue.

There's an option in GNAT to get it to complain when you
leave out ".all".  A pragma-Restriction, I think.

- Bob