Re: Latest suggestion for 202x

["Jeffrey R. Carter" <spam.jrcarter.not@spam.not.acm.org>]

On 6/17/19 11:38 PM, Keith Thompson wrote:
> 
> Personally, I've always thought that Ada should have used square
> brackets for array indexing.  I seem to recall that part of the
> rationale was that Ada might be used with character sets that
> don't include the '[' and ']' characters, including some variants
> of EBCDIC.
The Steelman requirements say, "2A. Character Set. The full set of character 
graphics that may be used in source programs shall be given in the language 
definition. Every source program shall also have a representation that uses only 
the following 55 character subset of the ASCII graphics:

     %&'()*+,-./:;<=>?
    0123456789
    ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"

This is at least partly why Ada did not use brackets. Note also that '"' is not 
in there; '%' may be used instead. That they did not do something similar for 
'[' and ']' may be indicative.

https://dwheeler.com/steelman/steelman.htm#THE_TECHNICAL_REQUIREMENTS

-- 
Jeff Carter
"C++ is like giving an AK-47 to a monk, shooting him
full of crack and letting him loose in a mall and
expecting him to balance your checking account
'when he has the time.'"
Drew Olbrich
52