Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!bbn!gatech!hubcap!billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu
From: billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe,2847,)
Newsgroups: comp.sw.components
Subject: Re: Inheritance vs. component effic
Message-ID: <6339@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Date: 27 Aug 89 16:03:16 GMT
References: <6333@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Sender: news@hubcap.clemson.edu
Reply-To: billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu
Lines: 17

From an earlier article by me: 
> [regarding storing pointers to subprograms in Ada]
> The major restriction, then, is not an inability to store a pointer to 
> a function in a record type; rather, it is the fact that there is not 
> a mechanism which can express the desire to invoke the function residing
> at that address; the 9X proposed revision would therefore provide such a
> mechanism. 

    Actually, even this isn't strictly true; since Ada provides a
    mechanism for arbitrary machine-code insertions, it is quite
    possible to load the address of the desired subprogram into a
    register, direct the CPU to execute the subprogram, and finally
    store a pointer to the results for subsequent use; it's just that 
    there's no way to do it while still preserving portability...


    Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu