Re: Ada9X Features

[mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)]

In article <356ev1$s8o@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>,
Richard A. O'Keefe <ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> wrote:

>There is a new standard.  ISO Pascal Extended.  It has _two_ mechanisms
>for varying-size arrays:  the old conformant array parameters, and a
>parametric type mechanism that looks uncannily like Ada.  The story I
>heard was that the people who voted to keep conformant array parameters
>out wanted to avoid conflicts with a possible future _better_ method,
>which eventually arrived, but by then the perception of Pascal as too
>crippled to use had sunk in.  I am aware of one ISO Pascal Extended
>compiler in progress, but have not been able to locate any commercial
>ones or plans for commercial ones, despite the "new" standard having
>been out for years.

Interesting. I had not heard of this, nor seen any books describing it.
(Or is the standard available by ftp somewhere?) Apparently the compiler
houses are not rushing to implement it either.

>For what it's worth, the easiest way I can think of to implement "modern"
>Pascal would be to build it on top of GNAT.  I'm not sure whether this
>says more about Pascal Extended or about Ada.

Even more interesting. Can you briefly describe how to build it on top
of GNAT? (Pascal-ish _sets_ are a CS2 exercise to build on Ada 83.)
Are there Pascal extended features that carry over easily into Ada?

Mike Feldman
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Michael B. Feldman -  chair, SIGAda Education Working Group
Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University -  Washington, DC 20052 USA
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