Re: Ada

[Hyman Rosen <hymie@prolifics.com>]

Florian Weimer <usenet@deneb.cygnus.argh.org> writes:
> You won't get reasonable error messages.  For example, try instantiating
> a STL container with a reference type; most compilers will give you
> several kilobytes of error messages.  The situation gets worse if you
> nest templates more deeply.

This is a quality-of-implementation issue. I think vendors are
concentrating first on compiling correct code. One hopes that
in the future, error messages will get better.

> Writing reusable templates in C++ is hard, because you have to be very
> careful not to use operations on the parametric types which aren't
> available in general.  These restrictions are not enforced by the
> compiler unless you provide suitable instantiations.

"If the type will fit, you must acquit" :-) The C++ template model
allows legal instantiations to compile, without specifying
restrictions on the types in advance, only through the operations
performed on the objects of the type. This requires attention in
writing the template if you want to minimize the number of things
required of the type, but that's fine.