Re: 'withing' problem

[Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org>]

Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> writes:

> Simon Wright wrote:
> 
> > If you are coming from a UML-based modelling environment,
> > cross-dependency is entirely natural. It would be quite wrong to
> > contort the model to cope with Ada's unfortunate limitations in this
> > respect.
> 
> Funny.  I don't regard the current context clause (with) as a
> problem, when one is designing in Ada.  It is most certainly not an
> "unfortunate limitation."  Rather, the grumbling about it most often
> reflects a lack of understanding, or acceptance, of the very strict
> visibility rules of the language.  As to the potential for circular
> context clauses, these need not exist when one correctly designs in
> Ada.

Well, you see, I'm not at all sure one should be "designing in Ada".

If your project was going to implement in C++, would you design in it?

Do you think that software designed with mutual dependency is less
reliable? less safe? more expensive? If there's a compelling argument,
OK, otherwise I stand by "unfortunate limitation".