Re: Ada Core Technologies and Ada95 Standards

[Ken Garlington <garlingtonke@lmtas.lmco.com>]

John McCabe wrote:
> 
> You seem to be defending a "make it fast, THEN make it work"
> philosophy here (which I completely disagree with) and confusing
> quality with run-time performance.

Except that, in the choices given, you could either have a performance
improvement (choice #1), or you could pass a test which did _not_ add
to _any_ measure of compiler quality. The second choice involved a test
with no value added to the user (this was a precondition of the second
choice).

I think, given those two options, you would prefer #1, right? Certainly,
if choice #2 involved a useful test, then I might agree with your response.
However, the ground rule for #2 was that it was a useless test. So,
failing test #2 should _not_ translate into a bug in the application code,
and so the effects you described later should not occur.

> Importance, in this case, is relative - I may be the only customer who
> uses the technique covered by the "obscure" test in which case it is
> _very_important to me.

This is certainly true, and one of the questions I asked. If the ACVC is
changing to be more user-oriented, how does the ACVC writer have this
understanding of how the compiler will be used? If his understanding
is in error, then the tests will still be focusing on the wrong things.

-- 
LMTAS - "Our Brand Means Quality"