Re: Ada OOP alternatives?

Adam Beneschan writes:
> On Jul 16, 6:36 pm, Robert A Duff <bobd...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> wrote:
>> "(see below)" <yaldni...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
>> > On 17/07/2008 01:05, in article wcc3am9gytt....@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> > "Robert A Duff" <bobd...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> >> I'd still rather eliminate private parts altogether.
>>
>> > How would you do that while allowing ADT clients to access objects
directly
>> > (i.e. not via a pointer a la Java)?
>>
>> I'd have the compiler take a peek at the body when compiling the
client.
>> After all, that's what Ada compilers already do for pragma Inline.
>> And I think incremental compilation can be a big win.
>
> You know, I'm still dreaming of the day when we can get rid of our
> current "object file" model of compilation, or whatever it's called,
> in which we assume that the compiler is going to compile individual
> library units into object code almost completely, so that the
> process of building the complete executable from all of its
> compilation units (linking) consists mostly of just patching
> addresses.  This technology has been around for a long time, but why
> are we still stuck with it?  It seems to me that it ought to be
> possible to have a compiler that compiles individual source files
> into some sort of "intermediate" representation that is not quite
> machine code, and then when the complete executable is built, the
> intermediate code is then used to generate the actual code.  This
> final process wouldn't be as fast as a linker that just patches
> addresses; for a large program, when one compilation unit changes,
> the final build would have to reprocess all of the compilation units
> that go into the program.  But it seems like it ought to be possible
> to design an intermediate representation that could be converted
> fairly easily with a minimal amount of processing, so that given the
> speed of today's computers (as compared with 1983), this extra
> processing wouldn't be much of an issue.  This would make it
> possible to dispense with private parts and put all of the "private"
> stuff into package bodies.  And if the language rules make privacy
> leakage impossible, then all legality errors would still be caught
> at "compile" time; there shouldn't be any case where an error isn't
> found until "final build".
>
> But I realize that I'm just dreaming...

I'm not so sure you're dreaming.  Isn't this how LLVM works?  And I
think one of the proprietary Ada compilers also works that way with a
somewhat "standard" intermediate representation.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.