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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: ff6c8,3f2bc78b09fef0e4,start X-Google-Attributes: gidff6c8,public X-Google-Thread: 10db24,3f2bc78b09fef0e4,start X-Google-Attributes: gid10db24,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,3f2bc78b09fef0e4,start X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,3f2bc78b09fef0e4,start X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,3f2bc78b09fef0e4,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: cseic@sw-eng.falls-church.va.us (CFCSEIC) Subject: CFCSEIC News Briefs Week Ending May 1, 1998 Date: 1998/05/01 Message-ID: <6id4sq$80b@ns1.sw-eng.falls-church.va.us> X-Deja-AN: 349388132 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Organization: Center For Computer Systems Engineering Information Clearinghouse Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.sw.components,comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.edu Date: 1998-05-01T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Center for Computer Systems Engineering News Briefs Week Ending: May 1, 1998 ************************************************************************ CONTENTS: FGIPC MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE XVIII CONFERENCE SUPPORTING OBJECT INITIALIZATION IN ADA 95 STRICOM USES VISUAL 2000 TO IDENTIFY RISKY DATE CODE ************************************************************************ FGIPC MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE XVIII CONFERENCE Topic: Software Engineering The Federation of Government Information Processing Council (FGIPC) will hold its Management of Change XVIII Conference: "Approaching the Next Millennium... the Challenges Continue!" from June 7-10, 1998, in Irvine, CA. The focus of the conference will be "High Tech Solutions with an Intergovernmental Approach", and the FGIPC is working to make MOC XVIII the premier intergovernmental-industry IT event of the year. The conference is targeted to senior-level government leaders and their industry counterparts. It has been designed to provide participants with the opportunity to meet and learn more about the IT needs of federal, state, and local IT managers and the ways in which industry can satisfy their large and often complex IT requirements. Further information about the conference, including program details, a full list of speakers, session summaries, and on-line registration can be found at http://www.fgipc.org. Additional registration information may be obtained directly from FGIPC. Source: FGIPC, 3601E Chain Bridge Road, Fairfax, VA 22030, (703) 218-1955, FAX: (703) 218-1960, e-mail: fgipc@fgipc.org. ************************************************************************ SUPPORTING OBJECT INITIALIZATION IN ADA 95 Topic: Ada 95 Zeki Bayram, the author of this article, which appears in the May 1998 issue of the Journal of Object-Oriented Programming (JOOP), describes a technique he has developed to augment the initialization of newly-created objects in Ada 95. According to Bayram, there are two important aspects to writing correct and maintainable object-oriented programs: automatic object initialization, which occurs when an object is created; and cleanup, which occurs when an object is removed from memory. The Ada.Finalization package provides two tagged type definitions, "controlled" and "limited_controlled", each of which has an initialization procedure defined for it. The problem, according to Bayram, is that only one parameter can be supplied to each procedure. He argues that successful initialization of any kind usually requires additional information, which needs to be supplied through arguments. Bayram suggests that parameters could be supplied during the initialization procedure by using pointers to actual parameters, which could be passed as access discriminants to tagged derived records. According to Bayram, the initialization procedure could then use the values pointed to by the discriminants to perform any initialization action necessary. In his conclusions, he suggests that Ada's initialization limitations might be solved by slightly incrementing Ada's syntax to allow the specification of constructor procedures. Source: Zeki Bayram, bayram@boun.edu.tr, "Implementing Constructor Calls with Parameters in Ada 95", The Journal of Object-Oriented Programming, May 1998, v11, n2 http: www.sigs.com; ************************************************************************ STRICOM USES VISUAL 2000 TO IDENTIFY RISKY DATE CODE Topic: Y2k/Ada According to Mark Jozwiak, project director of the Army Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command (STRICOM), the Visual 2000 tool from McCabe & Associates Inc. of Columbia, MD, is the best analytical tool he has found for testing application code at STRICOM's combat training centers. Visual 2000 is a test-coverage analyzer that identifies the high-risk modules within applications, enabling users to design tests that target the date-logic paths their applications use most frequently. Tom McCabe, founder of McCabe & Associates, notes that he has seen fewer instances of date variables and date-dependent logic in government code than in financial code. Visual 2000's test-coverage analyzer creates management reports showing the percentage of completed logic-path tests and future-date tests, and shows which applications are going to fail. This tool, though very useful, still requires considerable human expertise, according to STRICOM's Jozwiak. Visual 2000 runs under SunSoft Solaris, Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, and Windows 95 operating systems. It analyzes the COBOL, C, C++, Visual BASIC, FORTRAN and Ada languages. Source Florence Olsen, "Tool identifies risky date code", Government Computer News, Apr. 27, 1998 http://www.gcn.com/gcn/1998/april27/enter.htm ************************************************************************ The DISA CFCSEIC welcomes suggestions for and pointers to software engineering-related articles. Contact the DISA CFCSEIC at: mailto:info@sw-eng.falls-church.va.us To subscribe to the "Center for Computer Systems Engineering News Brief" electronic mailing list, send a message to: mailto:listproc@sw-eng.falls-church.va.us In the body of the message, write: subscribe newslist To unsubscribe, write: unsubscribe newslist No signatures please. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Center for Computer Systems Engineering Information Clearinghouse (CFCSEIC) "Center for Computer Systems Engineering News Briefs" is a compilation of summaries from software engineering-related articles in trade magazines, newsletters and press releases. For subscription information about the CFCSEIC DII COE Q&A LISTSERV, point to: .