Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!ulysses!hector!dsr
From: dsr@hector.UUCP (David S. Rosenblum)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Collective response to := messages
Keywords: User defined assignment
Message-ID: <10923@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>
Date: 2 Dec 88 14:58:16 GMT
References: <8811282217.AA04896@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu> <24856@sri-unix.SRI.COM> <42334@linus.UUCP>
Sender: netnews@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com
Reply-To: dsr@hector.UUCP (David S. Rosenblum)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ
Lines: 24

In article <42334@linus.UUCP> eachus@mbunix.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) writes:
|
|     "Overloading is defined for subprograms, enumeration literals,
|operators, and single entries, and also for the operations that are
|inherent in several basic operations such as assignment, membership
|tests, allocators, the literal null, aggregates, and string literals."
|
|      Overloading, and overload resolution involving basic operations
|is a fact of Ada life.

Yes, but there is an important difference between overloading of operators,
subprograms, etc., and overloading of basic operations.  Overloaded basic
operations are ALWAYS implicitly defined--they can NEVER be user-defined.
It is the proposal to allow user-defined overloadings of basic operations
that is prompting all the "frothing".


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David Rosenblum			UUCP: {ucbvax, decvax}!ulysses!dsr
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