Re: limited types (Was: Records that could be arrays)

On Fri, 24 Feb 2006 15:57:46 -0600, Randy Brukardt wrote:

> Indeed, many of us think that "limited" should be the default for Ada.
(It
> certainly ought to be for interfaces and tagged types, because that
allows
> more uses.) Only if you *need* assignment should something be
non-limited.

Right
 
> Of course, you often do need assignment. The containers are non-limited
so
> that they can be composed. And that's because it doesn't make sense to
have
> limited elements (as the elements have to be copied into the container).

I think that there should also be [limited] containers of limited types.
For this we need a construction model, which would allow user-defined
in-place constructors. After all Ada has always had arrays of limited
components. We have to extend this model onto user-defined containers.

I think that this would require separation of assignment from copy
constructor, as C++ does. Though the default must be that assignment is
generated from destructor and copy constructor.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de