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,b8b8a54001adc4d2
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
Path: 
 g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!newsfeed2.dallas1.level3.net!news.level3.com!newsfeed-00.mathworks.com!nntp.TheWorld.com!not-for-mail
From: Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Possible Ada deficiency?
Date: 11 Jan 2005 16:44:09 -0500
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Message-ID: <wccvfa33al2.fsf@shell01.TheWorld.com>
References: <1104516913.718856.94090@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>
 <wccy8f4orfp.fsf@shell01.TheWorld.com>
 <1105290947.422412.195950@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>
 <PbfEd.2632$pZ4.1560@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net>
 <1105327217.641306.80180@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>
 <wcc7jml3p6t.fsf@shell01.TheWorld.com>
 <1105396179.381458.84950@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>
 <cs1c01$32d$1@a1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: shell01-e.theworld.com
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
X-Trace: pcls4.std.com 1105479849 30837 69.38.147.31 (11 Jan 2005 21:44:09
 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: abuse@TheWorld.com
NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 21:44:09 +0000 (UTC)
User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2
Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:7657
Date: 2005-01-11T16:44:09-05:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Georg Bauhaus <sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de> writes:

> danmcleran@hotmail.com wrote:
> 
> :  It would be nice to prevent future
> : developers from writing child packages if you don't want them to.
> 
> If you prevent programmers from extending software I can't see
> how that's nice. ;-)

The issue is not one of preventing anybody from doing anything.
The issue is *allowing* programmers to state their design intentions
(e.g. "the package has no children").  And if some future programmer
changes those intentions, they change the code to say so.

> If the software depends on things staying concealed, why not just
> write a short comment explaining this and possible consequences of
> misuse?

Because comments do not state the truth -- they state what the original
programmer *thought* was the truth, and even if that's true, they can
become false accidentally during maintenance.

- Bob