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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!bbn!ishmael!inmet!ryer
From: ryer@inmet
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Translating 83 => 9X (Was: Re:
Message-ID: <20600008@inmet>
Date: 4 Oct 89 18:08:00 GMT
References: <6667@hubcap.clemson.edu>
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Nf-From: inmet!ryer    Oct  4 14:08:00 1989
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RE:  Ada 83/9X Compatibility

Right now there is a "Requirements Team" working out of IDA including
some government and some industry people.  They are analyzing the
change requests that have been submitted, the results of various
public workshops, the history of waivers granted by DOD to not use
Ada, etc, and will come out with a set of *requirements* for new
Ada.  For example, they may and may not make the statement "Full
support for object-oriented programming, at least at the functionality
level of C++ must be added".  They are not expected to say do
(or do not) add "classes" as a new type, or change type derivation
as follows.

There is a contract to be competed this winter called the Mapping/Revision
contract.  The winner will take the 9X *requirements* and design a
language (set of language changes) to meet them.  As far as I know,
"upward compatibility" has not been established as a firm requirement
for that contract, but no competent language designer is going to
make incompatible changes without an excellent reason and a lot
of squirming around to avoid it.

It wouldn't surprise me if someone is already building an automatic
translator.  It is a time-honored custom to begin implementing
the solution before the requirements have been defined.  Is the
translator to be old Ada to new (perhaps it deduces and inserts
classes to make programs better), or new Ada to old (to take
advantage of un-upgraded compilers)?

Mike Ryer
Intermetrics