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From: mfb@mbunix.mitre.org (Michael F Brenner)
Subject: Re: newbie Q: storage management
Date: 1997/05/06
Message-ID: <5knhge$mul@top.mitre.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 239754203
References: <5k5hif$7r5@bcrkh13.bnr.ca> <336A065B.41C6@magellan.bgm.link.com>
 <dewar.862662935@merv> <336E15A4.167E@magellan.bgm.link.com>
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford Mass.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Summary: need access to the change process
Date: 1997-05-06T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


> I'd like to see some kind of working group -- formal or not -- to
> coordinate people working on possible new language extensions.  For
> one thing, it would give such language-change advocates a better focus
> for their work than c.l.a postings, and anyone interested could visit
> their web site and stay in touch.
> 
> Anyone know of such an effort?  Anyone else interested?
> 
> Sam Mize

Such a group surely exists (or existed) because they voted on Ada-95.
However, that group does not necessarily represent all of the opinions
in the Ada community. In particular, that group opposes the majority
of the community in the topics of code efficiency, first class objects,
and the horribleness of the text_io restrictions. In addition, that
group opposes the minority of the community in other topics such as
efficient conversions between unsigned and signed types, efficiency of
doing unchecked_conversion without any object code generation, type
conversions with no code generation, restrictions preventing certain
time and space optimizations, and whether code efficiency should 
be discussed at all.
 
We all appreciate the work that group has done in continuing the language.
However, the decisions of that group were not perfect. Those decisions 
would have been better had some people with the opposing views been 
consulted. For example, Java would not have been necessary had Ada-95
adapted packages as first class objects (permitting arrays of packages). 
Even as second class objects, permitting passing packages to generics,
Java would have petered out in favor of Ada-95. 

The process needs improvement to the point where new people and new ideas 
get more of a chance to be injected. This is essential for the next step
Ada is about to take in specifying optical and hardware processes where
the code generated is circuits, ASICs, hardware implemented finite state
machines, and semi-optical computational systems. 

There IS a place in the REAL GROUP for representing alternative
opinions on issues such as these.

Another reason to open up the group to more people is that this group feels
that certain problems have been solved, according to recent posts. However,
some people in the community do not have access to the reasons why they
think they have been solved. In recent posts, I have been told that there
are machine- and compiler-independent ways within Ada-95 to 
   - put bits into a byte
   - do stream_IO
   - select alternate bodies for packages
     (for example, 1000 device drivers with the same visible part,
     of which one is selected as part of a computer program)

But I do not know how to accomplish these things in a machine- and
compiler-independent manner, using the pragmas, attributes, and features
of the Ada-95 language in the ISO standard. Therefore, either I am
ignorant in these three areas, or the standard needs specific examples
in these three areas, or the language needs to be fixed to do these
important things portably. 

Just my opinion, since you asked.