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Date: 8 Feb 93 15:29:15 GMT
From: cis.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!howland.
reston.ans.net!bogus.sura.net!darwin.sura.net!uvaarpa!software.org!smithd@ucbva
x.Berkeley.EDU  (Doug Smith)
Subject: Re: counting "renames"
Message-ID: <1993Feb8.152915.14457@software.org>
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <1993Jan31.155332.1@east.pima.edu> rharwood@east.pima.edu writes:
> In article <9301290047.AA15582@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu>, SAHARBAUGH@ROO.FIT.EDU writ
es:
> > I was asked to study a name-brand "Ada Static Code Analyzer"
> > product.  It has been around and evolving nicely for many years.
> > It counts things and gives reports based on threshold count
> > values you choose.  e.g. it will report how many goto's are used
> > and even tell you where (several years ago it wouldn't tell you
> > where).
> > It doesn't count "renames"!  I asked the salesman and he didn't
> > know why not but he would get back to me.  Several weeks later
> > he called to tell me that it doesn't count renames but he couldn't
> > tell me why.
> > Am I missing something?  Can anyone guess why they don't count renames?
> 
> A company I once worked for produced a source code analyzer (not for Ada), an
d
> when asked similar questions of the form "Why doesn't XYZ do <insert your
> favorite pet item>?", the VERY honest answer is : "Because nobody ever asked 
us
> before!"  Why, some programmer would have to first think of the idea himself
> (the tool was to be a money-maker, and was not designed to do anything but fi
ll
> a market need), and then [heaven forbid] someone would have to write and TEST
> the code.  I can hear the response in the team meeting now: "Renames? Who wou
ld
> want to count renames?"
> -----
> Ray Harwood           |Data Basix           |Adjunct Faculty, East Campus,
> Voice: (602)721-1988  |PO Box 18324         |   Pima Community College
> FAX:   (602)721-7240  |Tucson, AZ 85731     |Instructor in Ada and Pascal
> CompuServe: 76645,1370|AppleLink: DATA.BASIX|Internet: rharwood@east.pima.edu

Hello, Ray,

Your reference seems awfully familiar:-)  Could that be the tool with
acronym ISAS (a marketeers nightmare)?

Having sat through numerous meetings about features of this tool.  The
response was almost always--"What exactly do you want?"  In the above
example, do you want every occurence of the `renames'? or do you want
subtype declarations without constraints counted as an essential renames
also?

And do you want to know how often a particular name is used as the object
of a renames?  Do you want it for each file, compilation unit, or library?
etc., etc.

Usually, by the time those questions are answered, the customer (or marketeer)
had changed their mind.  In the meantime, the engineer had identified
the parameters of a new feature that might show up in the next release.

So, to the original poster, keep asking and be as specific as possible,
then wait and see if they don't provide an answer or actually implement
your suggestion.

Doug Smith
smithd@software.org