From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,c406e0c4a6eb74ed X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!peer01.cox.net!cox.net!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!feed3.news.rcn.net!not-for-mail From: jayessay Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Formal and informal type systems? Date: 28 Sep 2004 17:03:43 -0400 Organization: Tangible Sender: jsa@rigel.goldenthreadtech.com Message-ID: References: <49dc98cf.0408110556.18ae7df@posting.google.com> <413e2fbd$0$30586$626a14ce@news.free.fr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVaFDtfCDyl9DEEHzCdyRbLSZT8bykFRiv4L7MtV50vIkxsiYpDW7I01 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 28 Sep 2004 20:56:56 GMT User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2 Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:4340 Date: 2004-09-28T20:56:56+00:00 List-Id: Wojtek Narczynski writes: > >> Some things I miss in Ada that are available in ML: Higher order > >> functions, pattern matching and tuples. > > > > That has nothing to do with the type system. Lisp (obviously) also > > has higher order functions, Common Lisp has argument pattern matching > > via generic functions (especially via the eql specializer), etc. > > Well, I tend to disagree. > > LISP (runtime, obviously) typechecking mandates use of function as > arguments and values, so it has something to do with the type system. Could you be a little clearer about this? I don't understand your point as stated. Certainly there is no mandate to use a "function as argument" in any general sense. Sure, functions are a data type in Common Lisp, but that is not anything about the structural/conceptual level of the type system. > Tuples are purely a typesystem thing, it's a way to construct new > type from existing types by taking their carthesian product. OK. > Pattern matching has this to do with type system, that it is most > useful on algebraic datatypes, that the type system in question must > support. I disagree. /Jon -- 'j' - a n t h o n y at romeo/charley/november com