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From: Ken Garlington <GarlingtonKE@lmtas.lmco.com>
Subject: Re: Not intended for use in medical,
Date: 1997/04/25
Message-ID: <33611BC9.2D37@lmtas.lmco.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 237362244
References: <3.0.32.19970423164855.00746db8@mail.4dcomm.com>
Organization: Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-04-25T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. wrote:
> 
> [SNIP]
> My question is, Does validation of an Ada
> compiler on a platform provide significant evidence that the processor
> produces valid object code?

It's subjective, of course, but I would say that it is not _significant_
evidence. Useful, perhaps, but not significant.

> Would any of the other Ada test suites help?

The NPL sells a test suite that is supposed to help, but I have no
experience
with it.

> I deliberately used the word significant rather than sufficient.  If anyone
> knows how to prove sufficiency, I would also like a comment.  Any other
> suggestions that would permit realistic development of medical devices
> would be appreciated.

My experience is that the test suite needs to closely match the
programming
style, algorithm types, data structure types, compiler option usage, and
other
attributes of the application and its development approach. We have also
had
good success with the use of object-level structural coverage as a
supplement
to the "standard" testing approaches (see DO-178).

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