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Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!reading!minster!ken
From: ken@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: "silly" (?) Ada semantics
Message-ID: <644579683.25696@minster.york.ac.uk>
Date: 5 Jun 90 09:54:43 GMT
References: <1919@sparko.gwu.edu>
Reply-To: ken@SoftEng.UUCP (ken)
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <1919@sparko.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes:
>constraint_error would be raised at execution time. What is the point
>about the "silly" semantics: that the compiler should treat it as fatal?
>Well, OK, maybe it should. As a teacher of compiler construction, I know
>well that the question of what to treat as a fatal error is really a
>matter of taste. Let's not turn this into a religious thing, OK?

It's not a matter of taste for the _compiler vendor_. They _must_
compile it because it is legal Ada! It's not the fact that the compiler
spotted it - all Ada compilers I've seen spotted it! They all have to
generate code, which always generates a constrant error.

I thought Ada was targetted at high integrity mission critical
software? Is it a good idea to defer errors to run-time? I remember
being told by a FORTRAN diehard that the language was OK because a good
compiler spotted all the bad bits and warned the user. Great.

Ken