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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID
	autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
X-Google-Thread: 103376,9ae3749ddf1e6022,start
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
From: mporcell@flute.aix.calpoly.edu (Michael Anthony Porcelli)
Subject: Endian and Ada
Date: 1996/04/08
Message-ID: <4kamb9$om2@flute.aix.calpoly.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 146384722
organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
nntp-posting-user: mporcell@flute.aix.calpoly.edu
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-04-08T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

I'm taking a computer architecture class and my eyes have been opened to the
incredible lack of progress that computer science has made in the area of
architecture-independant programming.  One of the main problems that my
professor likes to point out the endian problem and the fact that so much
software is *not* endian-independant (due mainly to the widespread use of C
and C++).  However, he is not familiar enough with Ada (nor am I) to know if
Ada is endian-independant.  I'm almost positive that it's *possible* to make
endian-dependant code using unchecked programming (necessary for systems
writing).  I was wondering, however, if the day-to-day Ada software out
there is written endian-independant (i.e. the language facilities used in
most day-to-day programming don't depend on whether your architecture is
"big" endian or "little" endian.)

Thanks,

-Mike