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-Thread: 103376,3a1c64628a09855b X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!out03b.usenetserver.com!news.usenetserver.com!in04.usenetserver.com!news.usenetserver.com!news-in-02.newsfeed.easynews.com!easynews.com!easynews!transit4.readnews.com!news-out.readnews.com!postnews3.readnews.com!not-for-mail Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:26:23 -0400 From: "Peter C. Chapin" User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.12 (Windows/20080213) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Lack of formal syntax undermines Ada References: <47ff4970$0$19809$4d3efbfe@news.sover.net> <0d5b2ee5-56e7-446f-b29c-564580263c3e@i36g2000prf.googlegroups.com> In-Reply-To: <0d5b2ee5-56e7-446f-b29c-564580263c3e@i36g2000prf.googlegroups.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <480563cc$0$19822$4d3efbfe@news.sover.net> Organization: SoVerNet (sover.net) NNTP-Posting-Host: d32b2677.news.sover.net X-Trace: DXC=X]hcOHo=Cc@SHGN<7KP`INK6_LM2JZB_C`:l]lk@WAFN3?@`i3kGa5K4`Kc]4^kLUDh\VhP=?f=2C X-Complaints-To: abuse@sover.net Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:20967 Date: 2008-04-15T22:26:23-04:00 List-Id: 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