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,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 10.182.75.196 with SMTP id e4mr3807542obw.36.1458782386208; Wed, 23 Mar 2016 18:19:46 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.157.26.10 with SMTP id a10mr54327ote.20.1458782386125; Wed, 23 Mar 2016 18:19:46 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!feeder2.usenet.farm!feeder.erje.net!2.us.feeder.erje.net!news.glorb.com!nt3no3983256igb.0!news-out.google.com!pn7ni16701igb.0!nntp.google.com!nt3no3983250igb.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2016 18:19:45 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <56eff4a4$0$4238$e4fe514c@news.kpn.nl> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=2601:191:8201:bb5a:5985:2c17:9409:aa9c; posting-account=fdRd8woAAADTIlxCu9FgvDrUK4wPzvy3 NNTP-Posting-Host: 2601:191:8201:bb5a:5985:2c17:9409:aa9c References: <56eff4a4$0$4238$e4fe514c@news.kpn.nl> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <453b440b-a57b-4bef-9977-96dea9bd9e32@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Operating System differences and Ada OS independent programming From: rieachus@comcast.net Injection-Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2016 01:19:46 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:29861 Date: 2016-03-23T18:19:45-07:00 List-Id: > The proper description of the "Form" parameters is a "hack", "bad=20 > design". Obviously there should be no such thing. If the user wants some= =20 > system-dependent stuff he is welcome to use system API. Annex=20 > Interfaces.C is his friend.=20 Obsolete maybe, but not a hack. For Ada's initial intended uses thirty yea= rs ago, especially in embedded systems, you would commonly have multiple ty= pes of storage, and no fancy OS features to hide the differences. On one (= early) Ada project, the form string was disk, floppy, or core (yes, those l= ittle ferite doughnuts with three or four wires through them). Very differ= ent drivers and timings, and it did what we needed nicely. You couldn't cr= eate new files in core (no room), and the floppy drive was parked when in f= light, but it was all good. The original intent was for something like Fortran or Cobol form strings, b= ut by the time the Ada 83 standard rolled around, for the complex marshalli= ng and unmarshalling of records you either took the default that came with = Direct_IO or rolled your own with Low_Level_IO. (If the compiler was bein= g developed for the project, the vendor implemented Low_Level_IO whatever w= ay your requirements document stated. Most users though, didn't have that = big a hammer, so they used Text_IO, Direct_IO, or Sequential_IO.)