[M3devel] Modula-3 questions

[Rodney M. Bates]

On 04/18/2012 07:25 PM, Mika Nystrom wrote:
> penn43 at gmx.com writes:
> ...
>> P.S. is the creation and maintenance of module interfaces all that trouble? I
>> read somewhere that it is a pain, and that the inconvenience of it would only
>> be paid off when one has to manage large projects (which is not my case).
>
> I personally find the Modula-3 interface design to be one of the best
> parts of the language.  It would maybe be nice if it had more levels of
> qualification, like Java, but that's a minor issue.  The way that it's
> almost impossible to get name clashes is a much bigger advantage.

The Java levels-of-qualification system is not at all what it looks like
at first glance.  Semantically, it's no more than a flat space, with names
of things allowed to have dots in them (and no doubt white space and
comments around the dots.)  A.B has no more relation to A.C than
Shooby_Do_Bop has to HeyDownHoDownDerryDerryDown.

Yeah, I know it does reflect where the source files are located in your
directory structure, but aside from having no semantic significance,
that's only a cultural convention.  The language explicitly permits
implementors to search for source files otherwise.

>
> And you find that the small effort required to type your procedure
> prototypes pays off rather quickly...
>
> Finally, I could ask you what kind of programming you intend to do that
> you are certain won't eventually turn into large projects :-)
>
>      Mika
>