From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: ** X-Spam-Status: No, score=2.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,INVALID_DATE, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!brahms!weemba From: weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener) Newsgroups: net.lang,net.lang.ada Subject: Re: Integer division: a winner declared Message-ID: <11923@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Wed, 19-Feb-86 05:03:15 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.11923 Posted: Wed Feb 19 05:03:15 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 21-Feb-86 04:15:12 EST References: <11610@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <5100003@ccvaxa> <548@ism780c.UUCP> <1970@peora.UUCP> Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: weemba@brahms.UUCP (Matthew P. Wiener) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Keywords: Ada and DoD Xref: watmath net.lang:2123 net.lang.ada:656 Summary: a loser declared List-Id: In article <1970@peora.UUCP> jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) writes: >The problem is, as far as the implementation of machines is concerned, Ada >is likely to be the driving force for the forseeable future -- any company >doing an implementation is faced with either complying with Ada, or >suffering a performance penalty making the Ada compiler adapt the results >of the division (in software) to suit the Ada definition. Due to the >DoD's requirement for Ada, it seems likely that most manufacturers would >choose the Ada definition for the divide operations in their instruction >sets. You may be interested that many of the largest defense companies/contractors consider Ada to be a complete joke and have no intention of making it available unless their programmers start screaming and begging for it. This includes Los Alamos National Labs, Lawrence Livermore Labs, the National Security Agency, NASA and Lockheed. Considering that all the biggies run UNIX on Cray-2s and are--if they are intelligent--moving towards workstations that will talk with the Cray-2s quite easily (read UNIX workstations), it looks like that a large portion of DoD programming will move towards C, not Ada. Incidentally, LLL and NSA both have their own private languages. >[Note that the Ada standard was open for public comment through many >revisions, so if there was a strong opinion about division, it should have >been (and probably was) voiced then.] Yes and no. Several companies were asked to make suggestions and they laughed at the Ada idea even then. I for one do not care what the Ada standard is, and couldn't imagine why I would have wanted to contribute any strong feelings about language design to a language I couldn't care about. Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if they chose the boneheaded way of doing integer division for idiotic reasons anyway. >Thus it looks like the "intuitive" Ada definition wins. Hardy har har. [And to net.lang.ada readers: sorry for picking on Ada, but I realize many of you have no choice in the matter anyway.] ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720