Summary
This final chapter summarizes various overall aspects of Ada. The first three sections cover some general topics which have been introduced in stages throughout the book. There is then a section on the important issue of portability. The penultimate section airs a few philosophical thoughts about programming in general and Ada in particular. And then the last section is an introduction to the SPARK language which is based on Ada and is used for those essential high integrity systems where life and limb and the environment are at risk if the software is incorrect.
Names and expressions
The idea of a name should be carefully distinguished from that of an identifier. An identifier is a syntactic form such as Fred which is used for various purposes including introducing entities when they are declared. An operator has a similar status to an identifier; operators and identifiers are collectively referred to as direct names in the syntax. A name, on the other hand, may be more complex and is the form used to denote entities in general. The reader might find it helpful to consult the syntax in Appendix 3 and especially items 41 (name), 42 (direct_name), and 55 (primary).
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- Programming in Ada 2012 , pp. 823 - 850Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014