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: 103376,54889de51045a215 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-10-22 21:53:41 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3F975ECA.5000105@noplace.com> From: Marin David Condic 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 MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Early Ada Mistakes References: <1066224357.499523@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> <1066231159.711433@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> <1066311805.222491@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> <3F8F3077.60402@comcast.net> <3F900F35.50203@comcast.net> <3F952A59.5090001@noplace.com> <3F96788C.5020309@noplace.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 04:53:40 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 165.247.65.179 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net 1066884820 165.247.65.179 (Wed, 22 Oct 2003 21:53:40 PDT) mcondic@mindspring.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 21:53:40 PDT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:1487 Date: 2003-10-23T04:53:40+00:00 List-Id: Sure. But if there had been some recognition of the need to have a subset, perhaps there could have been a lower-level standard that would have allowed Janus to call itself "Ada" and perhaps met the needs of some larger market segment. I thought the biggest flaw in there was having to kludge up something to get Text_IO to work. Perhaps today, with the 'Image and 'Value attributes, there could have been something that would have worked with simple subprogram calls rather than generics. That would have made it easier to develop a standard, portable, upward-compatible subset of Ada that included the things one would normally expect of Pascal or C or Fortran. It could have been a competitor for those languages at its outset and held forth the promise of more to come as technology improved. Water under the bridge though - and no way to prove or disprove the theory. Still, the lesson ought to be "If the vendors are going to end up doing it anyway, better to get them doing it all in the same way through some sort of recognized standard." MDC Wes Groleau wrote: > Marin David Condic wrote: > >> As for subsets - that was viewed as heresy at the time. Nobody official >> wanted to sanction a subset and most of the potential users didn't seem > > > That's why they called it "Janus" instead of "Ada" > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "All reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for." --Logan Pearsall Smith ======================================================================