Re: Possible Ada deficiency?

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 07:24:10 +0000, Vinzent 'Gadget' Hoefler wrote:

> Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 
>> On 10 Jan 2005 18:58:12 +0100, Pascal Obry wrote:
>> 
>>> Duncan Sands <baldrick@free.fr> writes:
>>> 
>>>>> Another thing *I* would remove from the language is pragmas! At
>>>>> least I would not allow them anywhere except bodies.
>>>> 
>>>> What about pragma Inline?
>> 
>> I would leave all optimization issues to the compiler.
> 
> Hmm. Then: What about pragma Volatile? pragma Atomic?

Atomic and volatile are not about optimization. They describe a contract.
It is wrong to use pragmas for them. Maybe in C++, which does not deal with
concurrency it would be appropriate, but definitely not in Ada. It is clear
why these pragmas appeared. But it is also clear how they could disappear.
With full  ADT an "atomic Integer" will implement abstract protected
object. No need in any pragmas!

> Or all these interesting ones from Annexes D, E & H?

It depends on each concrete case. But the principle is simple, there should
be no pragmas influencing contracts. So they need not appear in
specifications. Therefore they should be forbidden there.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de