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From: firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Ada language revision
Message-ID: <7808@aw.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 25 Nov 88 20:36:12 GMT
References: <44449@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV> <3563@hubcap.UUCP> <7882@nsc.nsc.com> <739@marvin.cme-durer.ARPA> <7796@aw.sei.cmu.edu> <6843@pyr.gatech.EDU>
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In article <6843@pyr.gatech.EDU> tynor@pyr.UUCP (Steve Tynor) writes:
>In article <7796@aw.sei.cmu.edu> dd@sei.cmu.edu (Dennis Doubleday) writes:
>>  The declaration of a limited private type is an
>>IMPLEMENTATION decision.  It doesn't belong in the specification, it
>>belongs in the body.  If I'm trying to export some abstract data type
>
>Here, here. I think the Modula 2 compromise of requiring 'opaque' types to be
>pointers is adequate. This way there is enough information supplied in the
>specification for code generation in client packages, but the implementation 
>details are not broadcast.

And Ada provides exactly that facility, in almost exactly the same way.
See [RM 3.8.1(3)].

Sigh.

[On the other hand, whoever
invented that BLOODY STUPID
rule about appended material
having to be at least as long
as quoted material was A PEA
BRAINED FORNICATING MORON.
]