TEAM-ADA Archives

Team Ada: Ada Programming Language Advocacy

TEAM-ADA@LISTSERV.ACM.ORG

Options: Use Forum View

Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Tucker Taft <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Tucker Taft <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 13 Dec 1999 11:30:16 -0500
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (28 lines)
[log in to unmask] wrote:
>

> Am I wrong to be disappointed that such a defacto standard would be based
> on
> a C-ism (or Unix-ism) as the "environment variable" ?

No.  Environment variables really have nothing fundamental to do
with C.  I suppose Unix invented the term "environment variable" but
most operating systems have some sort of process context which
includes user-definable variables of some sort.  Things like
current directory, current search path, current user, etc., all
seem most conveniently and consistenly accessible via named variables,
even if there are also special systems calls available for each
as well.

Do you have some general replacement for the concept of "environment
variables" in mind?  Note that Ada 95 has the notion of "task attributes"
which are solving a similar problem (though Ada does not provide
inheritance of task attributes).

> Larry Kilgallen

--
-Tucker Taft   [log in to unmask]   http://www.averstar.com/~stt/
Technical Director, Distributed IT Solutions  (www.averstar.com/tools)
AverStar (formerly Intermetrics, Inc.)   Burlington, MA  USA

ATOM RSS1 RSS2