From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,8893269a4640c798 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-07-27 04:36:25 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!harp.news.atl.earthlink.net!not-for-mail From: Marin David Condic Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: terminate applications Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 07:36:23 -0400 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Message-ID: <3F23B937.5010608@noplace.com> References: <3F17DF3C.4080204@noplace.com> <3F196773.2060809@noplace.com> <3F19F86C.9050808@attbi.com> <3F1A772F.9060708@noplace.com> <3F1AD6FB.8080806@attbi.com> <3F1BD666.6040506@noplace.com> <3F1C4DA6.3070405@attbi.com> <3F1D29E8.60107@noplace.com> <3F1D2FDC.1070402@noplace.com> <3F1DC75A.5050300@noplace.com> <87oezm9lar.fsf@inf.enst.fr> <3F1E7E1E.8090302@noplace.com> <3F1FC849.8070202@noplace.com> <3F227F16.2010908@noplace.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: d1.56.bc.01 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 27 Jul 2003 11:36:25 GMT User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 (OEM-HPQ-PRS1C03) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:40858 Date: 2003-07-27T11:36:25+00:00 List-Id: O.K. but that is just making a case for why we need a library of common stuff outside of the ARM. I'll agree that there are all sorts of useful things that are difficult to specify to a sufficient level of detail to make them suitable for an ISO standard. But if the alternative is to say "Go roll your own..." or "You can find that in one or more of fifty libraries lying around the internet somewhere..." then I think it is unacceptable. You want to know that the code you wrote is making a call to something that will be supported in some fashion on most platforms by most compilers without having to make source code changes. If we had a conventional library ("Provisional Standard" was the name suggested by Dr. Leif, but I'm willing to call it anything the community likes) that was adopted by most of the vendors, you could put a call such as this in there and not worry that nobody bothered to specify its behavior to some high level of detail or build a validation suite to be sure that it killed a program in exactly this particular manner with precisely these side effects. It would just exist in the library as a portable abstraction for the OS call and it does whatever happens when the OS call executes. No updates to the ARM, flexible implementation allowed, everybody can build portable code, no rigorous and costly validation procedures, Ada becomes more useful to everyone, everybody wins. I can't see how that would be a bad thing. MDC Nick Roberts wrote: > > I think this suggestion makes it clear that: the semantics of such a > procedure would be difficult to define, and impossible to enforce or test; > it truly could be really dangerous in some environments. You might consider > all the above a bit too much to add to the RM to be worth it. > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ======================================================================