Re: Bases for the Design of a Standard Container Library for Ada

[maa@liacc.up.pt (Mário Amado Alves)]

"Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> wrote in message news:<vld85u3hhifved@corp.supernews.com>...
> What's missing in this document is a discussion of what the library is
> trying to accomplish. You really have to have that before you can even talk
> about other requirements.
> ...

The document rests on the assumption that the general concept of a
standard container library for Ada is well understood. But a short
explicitation wouldn't hurt I guess. Make the document selfsufficient.
Thanks for your text. The "body of knowledge" already contains many
statements of need and high level requirements (including now your
message). The work plan includes adding such statments to it. I was
thinking of doing that focusedly i.e. attaching them as rationalia to
each of the design decisions which are the main items of the document.
This sounds like working backwards, but actually the design items were
made with the requirements in mind. The requirements were not
explicitly expressed in the document yet simply because lack of time I
guess.

The Bases body of knowledge is an informal account of the collective
mind. Actually what matters is the collective mind. My hope is this
mind will look at the Bases and find most of their requirements
honored there.

Time is an issue here because the Ada 2005 process includes really
near deadlines now. Particularly, the first deadline for the standard
container library proposal is the end of this monht (September 2003).
That deadline has something to do with AI302, I'm not sure what and
how exactly, and how exactly the Bases relate to the AI302
processwise, and in fact I'm hoping people more knowledgeable of this
here on CLA will help here.