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From: Marius Amado Alves <amado.alves@netcabo.pt>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Formal and informal type systems?
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 12:31:22 +0100
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Date: 2004-09-28T12:31:22+01:00

> :> Some things I miss in Ada that are available in ML: Higher order
> :> functions, pattern matching and tuples.
> 
>  [GNAT.SPITBOL]
> 
> Maybe the phrase "argument pattern matching" should be substituted
> for "pattern matching" outside "functional communities", to avoid
> misunderstandings.

Maybe. I was kind of teasing. I suggested GNAT.Spitbol but I may as well 
suggest my package Patterns (wait for the secret URL) which support 
pattern matching of strings of any type of component. And this structure 
subsumes tuples, no?

> but functions cannot carry their environments with them, to the same
> extent?

Use formal packages then :-)

Now, my understanding of what you guys are saying equates to a 
(non-existing) way in Ada to reflect on record structure, be it by 
conversion to array or other device. I think that this would require a 
lot of reflection, probably to the degree of dynamic creation of types. 
A MOP (Meta-Object Protocol) essentially. Maybe OpenAda does it. I'm not 
sure about the effect of this on the Ada-ilities.