Re: Strawman,woodenman and tinman

[mfb@mbunix.mitre.org (Michael F Brenner)]

JW > ... extreme difficulty in obtaining a copy of Straman, Woodenman,
   > and Tinman which led to Ironman and Steelman ...          

JW is not the only one interested in tracing the evolution of
these requirements. I have wanted to do this for many years and
have the same problem obtaining free copies of the documents.


MK > Try:
   >   a. Ask altavista
   >   b. use Interlibrary Loan
   >   c. see if there is a microfiche copy
   >   d. ask how much IDA would charge

TC >   e. look on www.adahome.com/History/Steelman/intro.htm
   >   f. Strawman (Apr 1975) was not widely published
   >   g. Woodwnman (1975) either
   >   h. Tinman (Jan 1976) either
   >   i. Ironman is in Dec 1977 Sigplan Notices
   >   j. Steelman is in Dec 1978 Sigplan Notices and the above URL

Well, I tried to get the above on the Net and have not been able to do
it, and also have not been able to get the 4 color language
proposals and our answers to them (other than my own). It would
be nice to see how we have evolved since we answered those proposals.
I still believe a realtime way of doing variable length stuff would
be cool, and enough macro pre-processing to select alternate package
bodies is essential to the language. My later theories of exactly
how to do realtime and how to make Ada run faster were not reflected
in those earlier documents.

There are some other possiblilities to look at:

    k. There are excerpts of the Strawman, Woodenman, and Tinman in 
       Col. W's document at the URL (divided into 2 lines for e-mail):
       http//sw-eng.falls-church.va.us/AdaIC/pol-hist/
                       history/holwg-93/holwg-93.htm

    l. The Librarian at the Ada IC at phone number 703-681-2451
       might be able to photocopy them (Becca Norton?).

    m. It is a sin and a shame that ancient documents are not
       available on the Net yet. If someone will send me their
       copy, I will go to Kinkos and get Strawman, Woodenman,
       Tinman on-line immediately. 

    n. What if everyone who responded to the 4 color language
       proposals scan in their own responses and send them
       in somewhere. Would AdaIC or HoBAP make room for them?
       I will not do it first, because (as reported above)
       my opinions have evolved with the language, and so 
       I will wait until three others have revealed their prior
       opinions. 

    o. In general, in this and other fields, there are few
       exceptions to the fact that ancient documents should be
       available on-line. We should support this in useful
       cases like Strawman, the color language proposals, and
       the responses to the color proposals, as well as more 
       remote cases like preserving the inscriptions on the Mayan 
       and Egyptian and Siamese Pyramids, and the rest of the Dead Sea 
       Scrolls which are not on the CD.

Actually there is a much more recent document that needs to be on
the Web. Before Ada-95 was even Ada-9X, there was a Requirements Document
which was the only part of the process that people like me were
permitted to submit input to. 

To this document, I submitted my requests for second-class
packages (passing non-generic packages to generics), efficient use 
of the 32nd bit in unsigned numbers, etc.,
which Robert has often stated that he was unaware of any 
requirements for these things. It would be nice to have that
document on-line. 

It would also be nice to have that document made on-going. 

That way, we could put into it the more recent suggestions
we have been posting onto comp.lang.ada, so that they will be
considered for Ada-2000X. There has to be an opportunity for input,
even when the people in power do not necessarily agree with that
input. 

Mike Brenner