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-Thread: 103376,aba1514f4a1fc450 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Received: by 10.66.72.165 with SMTP id e5mr2694692pav.4.1345610434051; Tue, 21 Aug 2012 21:40:34 -0700 (PDT) Path: a5ni1263pbv.0!nntp.google.com!news2.google.com!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: Adam Beneschan Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Have the Itanium critics all been proven wrong? Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2012 21:40:33 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <79749199-28ba-4c5f-b963-49d15c29b83f@googlegroups.com> References: <077b12f6-1196-4b5c-bbdb-04291b1ae616@q22g2000vbx.googlegroups.com> <589825d2-d998-456a-9c37-c8ae13e1e7bc@e29g2000vbm.googlegroups.com> <0ca8e290-722c-4f9d-9324-b29469874559@googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.4.246.214 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: posting.google.com 1345610433 21375 127.0.0.1 (22 Aug 2012 04:40:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2012 04:40:33 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=68.4.246.214; posting-account=duW0ogkAAABjRdnxgLGXDfna0Gc6XqmQ User-Agent: G2/1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Date: 2012-08-21T21:40:33-07:00 List-Id: On Tuesday, August 21, 2012 9:08:34 PM UTC-7, Bill Findlay wrote: > On 22/08/2012 03:42, in article >=20 > >>> At least during the AJPO period and MIL-STD/1815A, the Ada > >>> specification was NO SUBSETS and NO SUPERSETS were permitted to call > >>> themselves Ada. (This doesn't cover optional annexes, just the core > >>> language). >=20 > >> Yes. That was enforced rigorously. But things are different now. >=20 > >> The Restrictions pragma allows the programmer to exclude features that= are > >> considered inappropriate for a particular application. So it could be= said > >> that Ada now has 2**N subsets, where N is the number of Restrictions > >> options. I don't have an exact count, but N is of the order of 50. > > > > That's not at all the same thing. The first has to do with implementor= s > > providing a compiler that only implements a subset of the required Ada > > features, and still calling it Ada; the second has to do with the langu= age > > providing a feature by which users can restrict the features they thems= elves > > use. A compiler that handles all the features of Ada is not implementi= ng a > > "subset" of Ada even if it supports all the Restrictions pragmas. >=20 > These are legalistic differences, not real semantic ones. Not that I want to start a long discussion nitpicking about what words mean= --we have enough of those threads--but you seemed to be contrasting two thi= ngs that shouldn't have been contrasted. If the early Ada designers had th= ought a Restrictions pragma would be useful, it could have been in the lang= uage, allowing programmers to enforce "subsets" on themselves, and the AJPO= still could have imposed a "no subsets" rule on implementors. The two are= n't contradictory. That was my point. But it's an unimportant nitpick, an= d that's all I'm going to say about it. -- Adam