Re: A Pascal Subset of Ada (was: Why Ada is Failing Socially)

[sampson@cod.NOSC.MIL (Charles H. Sampson)]

In article <1991Jun26.203828.11797@netcom.COM> jls@netcom.COM (Jim Showalter) writes:
>>     By the way, in the early 80s I tried to define a Pascal subset of Ada.
>>I found it a non-trivial exercise.  The problem was, I didn't want to in-
>>clude generics,

[The above was from me.]

>Why on earth not?

     Because the point of the exercise was to define a Pascal subset of Ada.
By this I meant a subset that had roughly the power of Pascal, but in Ada's
syntax and semantics.  There were two points to this exercise: To clean up
Pascal's known shortcomings (e.g., unblocked if, lack of modular compilation)
and to end up with a subset for which a compiler could be written for a rea-
sonably low cost.  There was no precise dividing line between "cleaning up"
and "adding useful new features", of course, so figurative coins were often
flipped.  However, it was easy to exclude generics on the grounds of compiler
costs.

                                 Charlie