Overloading in the Ada language: Is it too restrictive?

Abstract

Packages in the Ada™ language provide a mechanism for extending the language through the development of additional data types. Such types can be better integrated into the language using operator overloading; however, key limitations prevent new types from being transparently integrated into the language. Allowing function names to overload private type names would give a cleaner and clearer mechanism for building values of these types. Furthermore, by allowing redefinitions of “:=” and by making it easier to overload “=” for private types, Ada could be transformed into a more expressive language.