Re: Lack of formal syntax undermines Ada

["Peter C. Chapin" <pchapin@sover.net>]

usenet@leapheap.co.uk wrote:

> Is it obvious to anyone which answer is correct?

Your example is a good illustration of the sort of problems that arise 
when one tries to use a natural language to specify anything. Alas, 
virtually all programming language standards suffer from this. One could 
argue that we really should write language standards in some kind of 
formal specification language like Z. However, doing so would make the 
standard inaccessible to a vast majority of programmers. Providing a 
detailed and unambiguous grammar in the standard would probably have the 
same effect. I agree that the situation is lamentable, but I'm not sure 
what can be done about it short of addressing issues one at a time as 
they arise.

Peter