Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!igor!rutabaga!jls From: jls@rutabaga.Rational.COM (Jim Showalter) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Pre-condition vs. Post-condition Message-ID: Date: 29 Mar 91 03:28:00 GMT References: <20600091@inmet> <23141@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> <2918@sparko.gwu.edu> <2929@sparko.gwu.edu> <5074@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> <2947@sparko.gwu.edu> Sender: news@Rational.COM Lines: 18 >>That's not the issue: default initialization, particularly of private >>types, is for the benefit of the SUPPLIER, not the client. >Right. As long as the client program(mer) doesn't make hidden assumptions >in the client code about what the default value is. But a programmer who makes such assumptions is a doofus. I don't want to remove features in the language that are useful for good programmers just to make it harder for doofus programmers to act like doofuses: I want fewer doofus programmers to have jobs. Just because it is possible to write an erroneous program in Ada (and I submit that depending on default values in private types is highly erroneous) is no reason to damn the features that make such erroneousness possible. This is not a language issue: it's an education issue. -- ***** DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed herein are my own, except in the realm of software engineering, in which case I've borrowed them from incredibly smart people.