Re: Floating point problem

[kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)]

In article <333E18D8.1F84@bix.com>, Tom Moran <tmoran@bix.com> writes:

> But, knowing that FPU detection code can be found in Intel docs, is it
> possible for a user program to run that code early enough (ie before the
> RTS or elaboration code has crashed and burned) to give a nice error
> message to the user?

And if Ada is intended to be source-compatible between platforms,
why should a programmer need to know the Intel instruction set and
differences betwee chips.  Power-PC and Alpha computers also have
certain instructions which available on some chip models but not
others. Since compiler developers by definition must deal with
such instruction set issues, the Ada implementation would seem
to be the most efficient place for such efforts to be expended.

That does not solve the issue of finding funding for compiler
developers to add such support.  But if Ada is to become more
widely used ultimately the cost of even saying RTFM in response
to trouble calls will drive detecting runtime failures in a
helpful fashion.  This sort of attitude has already been used
for compile-time as no compiler developer has thought it enough
to give a minimal (RM-allowed ?) level of compilation diagnostics
by delivering only a single "not a good Ada program" message
in response to a compilation attempt.

Larry Kilgallen