Re: The best thing/greatest feature summary

["Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org>]

"James Rogers" <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:39FF8DE3.EC0055B5@worldnet.att.net...

: If you only want to emulate the Member interface in java.lang.reflect
: you can instantiate the following generic package in the bodies of your
: packages.
:
: -----------------------------------------------------------------------
: -- Generic package to define a "common" interface for providing
: -- debug information.
: -----------------------------------------------------------------------
: generic
:
:    Package_Name : String;

This, of course, is the critical difference between your solution and the
Java solution. "Package_Name" may, or may not, be the name of the Ada
package -- its correctness is only enforced by the programmer's diligence
(particularly in the face of changes). The Java method does not depend upon
keeping the same information copied in two places, as in

package MyPackage is -- [1]

  package R is new Reflect("MyPackage"); -- [2]

Given that a goal of Ada is to reduce errors due to copying, the argument
that the Ada approach is not as desirable as the Java approach seems like a
valid criticism to me. It gets worse, of course, if you want to implement
more than just the package name: a full implementation of the Java
functionality could presumably include the names of types, objects, record
components, subprograms, parameters /return types, and exception names.