Re: Ichbiah's Letter

[usenet.ins.cwru.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!fs7.ece. cmu.edu!news.sei.cmu.edu!firth@gatech.edu (Robert Firth)]

In article <1qfku0INN5f9@news.aero.org> jordan@aero.org (Larry M. Jordan) write
s:

> (homeric allusion, prophesy?!)
> "(Unlike Cassandra, I speak here with experience. Like Cassandra, however, 
>  I may share the dual attributes of being right and not believed.)  

Yes.  Cassandra, Princess of Troy, was the daughter of King Priam.  The
god Apollo became enamoured of her, and offered her whatever she asked,
in return for her favours.  She demanded the gift of prophecy.

However, in what is perhaps the world's oldest recorded tease game, she
then refused to keep her part of the bargain, so Apollo gave her a second
gift: that, though she would always predict truthfully, she would never
be believed.

> "Moreover, very strict upward compatibility is a prerequisite for the 
>  strategy of gradual introduction of 9X features in existing Ada compilers."

This is the point where I got sad.  Consider, for example, that Ada 9X
adds many new reserved words to the language.  Anyone who has lived
through the evolution of the Cobol language over the past 30-odd years
will be vividly aware what a disaster that is, forcing you to change
not just code but designs, specifications, data dictionaries, system,
software and user documentation, libraries and bindings, tools that
generate Ada as an intermediate language, ...

And to hear a mamber of the new team dismiss this problem as no big deal...