From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.0 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_40 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 9 Dec 92 05:26:24 GMT From: seas.gwu.edu!mfeldman@uunet.uu.net (Michael Feldman) Subject: Re: Open Systems closed to Ada? Message-ID: <1992Dec9.052624.23020@seas.gwu.edu> List-Id: In article <1992Dec7.215946.18972@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com ( fred j mccall 575-3539) writes: > [stuff deleted all over the place] >>No, I'd rather they form a higher order language group full of people from >>the technical community, review the languages in use to see if there's one >>good enough for what they want, and go on from there. > >>Sure I've heard that somewhere before... > >Ah, but there's a bit of difference between doing that periodically >and selecting the best tool for the job and going off to design your >own and then 'freezing' the state of the art and never looking again >(or only looking every dozen years or so). > Let's set out a few facts. The Ada standard was adopted in 1983 as an ANSI standard. Following ANSI rules, the standard revisiting process was begun in 1988, five years after adoption. That the revision seems to be taking so long is a commentary on the social process of creating a standard in the usual way, i.e. by a committee of many people - users, vendors, Uncle Sam - each with their own agenda. Consider the following other standards: ANSI C was adopted in (I think) 1990; the language was first published in 1975. It took 15 years to agree on a standard. Fortran 90 (!) was adopted only in 1992. The previous standard was Fortran 77, so the process started in 1982. So it took ten years. The standard prior to Fortran 77 was Fortran 66, 11 years before. ANSI Pascal was adopted in 1983; Pascal was first published in 1971, 12 years before. Moreover, ANSI Pascal and ISO Pascal are slightly different (conformant array parameters are the only difference - ISO has 'em; the US faction didn't want 'em). So after laboring mightily, the Pascal work brought forth TWO mice. Ever look at the Pascal standard? Not worth the effort, if you ask me. MUCH too minimal, which only perpetuated the Pascal "feature wars." Ever try porting a Turbo Pascal program to Microsoft Pascal? They are DIFFERENT languages. What's the point? The Ada9X project is doing NOTHING but following the traditional ANSI process. If X=3 or X=4, as is likely, the revision will set a new record for expeditiousness. Building a standard after the fact, when everyone has vested interests ranging from serious desire for change to strong desire for no change, is simply not easy. C, Fortran, and Pascal are ample evidence of the social problems. (Cobol's even better, but I've lost track of that process.) Ada83 was frozen, and 1815-A enforced with a mighty hand, because DoD was simply not about to keep working with constantly moving targets. And, by the way, the ISO standard is the same as the ANSI one. So there is a single worldwide standard. This is bad? The copyright and trademark lapsed in 1988. People who complained about DoD not allowing experimentation could EASILY have done as they wished from 1988 on. Validation is required ONLY for DoD contract compilers; there is no reason why Ada-like supersets could not have been built and marketed after 1988, to the rest of the world. I am constantly amazed at the number of people who don't even know that Ada has not been a trademark for 4 years. People who beef about features they'd like in Ada could simply have gotten together and produced a compiler that implemented their wish list. Ada9X will not even be a MIL standard, if I understand correctly. It will simply be an ANSI standard like all the others. Presumably DoD will freeze it for their own work - why shouldn't they? For the rest of us, the sky is the limit, just as it is for all the other languages. Grab GNAT when it comes out, add features to your heart's delight, experiment, run it up the flagpole and see who salutes. C++ is reasonably common across compilers, but not as much so as Ada, although I am told it's catching up. When will we see a C++ standard? If your answer is "over my dead body - who wants it to stagnate?" then you are precisely missing the point about why DoD wants a language standard. One man's stagnation is another man's stability. I hear lots of sob stories from teachers and students of C++ whose code will compile under g++ but not under Turbo, and vice versa. And NOT because the class libraries are different (which they are), but because the languages differ just enough to cause madness. This is good? It's 1992, folks. How long will we fight the feature wars? Well, it's deja vu again. This is another round of the ancient debate between free choice and predestination. The nice thing about standards is that they achieve stability. The rotten thing about standards is that they achieve stability. Take your choice. IMHO, DoD is doing the right thing by opting for a strong and enforceable standard. Shooting at a moving target is no fun. I don't often defend Defense, but dammit, I think they are right on target here. Contractors who want to experiment with a moving state of the art with MY tax money are just outta luck. Mike Feldman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael B. Feldman co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science School of Engineering and Applied Science The George Washington University Washington, DC 20052 USA (202) 994-5253 (voice) (202) 994-5296 (fax) mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet) "Americans want the fruits of patience -- and they want them now." ------------------------------------------------------------------------