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From: sampson@cod.NOSC.MIL (Charles H. Sampson)
Subject: Meridian's Boo-boo
Date: 18 Apr 91 20:17:34 GMT	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <2997@cod.NOSC.MIL> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 60910417115206.0004238973NC2EM@mcimail.com

In article <60910417115206.0004238973NC2EM@mcimail.com> 0004238973@MCIMAIL.COM
(Frank Pappas) writes, while comparing several PC compilers:
>   Meridian has really turned their compiler around, and with the
>addition of the OpenAda environment, it is my choice for a low-cost
>Ada compiler. It's true Meridian occasionally suffers from some
>embarrassing problems. For example, as raised in a recent net
>posting, if the type mark is omitted from a subtype declaration
>containing an integer range constraint, Integer is assumed for the
>type mark. That's to be expected when you are turning a poor product
>into a good one.

     As a compiler implementor, one of the games I play is trying to guess
what causes other's compiler bugs.  (Figuring out my own is not a game;
that's work!)  This Meridian mistake is not what I would expect from any
compiler.  If the identifier following SUBTYPE is omitted, you have a
simple syntax error, which should be caught by the parser long before any
of the semantic routines have the opportunity to assume anything.  The
only explanation that makes any sense is that there is an error in the
BNF that Meridian fed into their parser generator but, if this is the
case, it could have been easily fixed long ago.

                                Charlie

  reply	other threads:[~1991-04-18 20:17 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
1991-04-17 11:52 Janus Ada, etc Frank Pappas
1991-04-18 20:17 ` Charles H. Sampson [this message]
1991-04-19 14:47 ` Frank Pappas' comparative compiler review Michael Feldman
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