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From: Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Why .ads as well as .adb?
Date: Sun, 09 Jun 2019 11:56:03 -0700
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Xref: reader01.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:56581
Date: 2019-06-09T11:56:03-07:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> writes:
> Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> writes:
>> Math textbooks have a table of contents and an index.  Both *could* be
>> in separate volumes, but there would be no particular advantage in that
>> (though it's entirely possible that the author kept them in separate
>> files).
>
> Sure, that's a good comparison.  Actually typically, the TOC and index
> are generated by software using inline markers that the author puts in
> the text.  There might be an occasional situation where you want the TOC
> and the main text to be in separate volumes (like for a 100 volume
> series you could want a special volume just for the TOC), but normally
> it's fine to print both in the same volume.

Programs are not books.

> So it still seems annoying to requires the spec and body to be in
> separate files.

Code is read more often than it's written.  As someone reading code
and trying to understand it, I appreciate having the specification
by itself in a separate file, so I can see the information needed
by clients of the code without having to concern myself with the
implementation (which can vary).

How often do you want to read the specification of Text_IO?
How often do you need to read the implementation?

Tools that can generate a specification from a possibly annotated
implementation are fine, but it's inconvenient (and sometimes
impossible) to invoke such a tool every time I want to see the
specification.

[...]

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
Will write code for food.
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */