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"Team Ada: Ada Advocacy Issues (83 & 95)" <[log in to unmask]>
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JF Harrison <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 23 Feb 2001 19:46:19 -0800
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JF Harrison <[log in to unmask]>
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Perhaps rather than a visual development environment, something equivalent
to Python could be developed for Ada.  Give it a name like Adaconda.
Writing in Adaconda wouldn't be like writing in Ada, but it would be based
on Ada.  A higher level language as handy as Python.  Why not just use
Python?  Because we'd like to use an executable that works like a compiled
Ada program, compiled by an Ada-style compiler, which just happened to be
written using a briefer scripting language.  Even things like turning off
type-checking could be used, but handled in an Ada way.  I don't know how to
do that in Ada, but perhaps it could be done by creating a package with a
variety of universal data types and corresponding overloaded operators.
Rather than having an untyped variable, specific assumptions are made in
designing a particular universal data type, the assumptions are documented
(and usable by the compiler for type checking), and the data type is made
available for use as an "untyped" variable (default type, set by one line of
code).  Add in exception handling and so forth, and you have an untyped
variable by design rather than by lack of definition; if the variable is
used in a manner that goes out of the designed range of the universal type,
an error/warning is generated at compile time.

ramblin' man


JF Harrison

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