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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,67ca96c42837a9ca X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com Subject: Re: Getting GNAT to issue ARM error messages Date: 1999/02/14 Message-ID: <7a5b71$d25$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 444134708 References: <79oj1f$e8p$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <1999Feb10.073547.1@eisner> <7a1a9i$2kq$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36C47579.3D0CAFCB@averstar.com> <7a490k$snr$1@plug.news.pipex.net> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x8.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 205.232.38.14 Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion X-Article-Creation-Date: Sun Feb 14 02:08:39 1999 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.04 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 1999-02-14T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <7a490k$snr$1@plug.news.pipex.net>, "Nick Roberts" wrote: > It seems to me that Robert Dewar's argument is false, > really. He seems to be arguing, in essence, that "because > it will help very few users, GNAT should not issue > references (to the RM95)". But, surely, if the references > would help any user at all (e.g. me), they should be > included. How could they do any harm? First of all, most *certainly* useless RM references have the potential for harm. They can send people off on wild goose chases trying to read (to them) incomprehensible stuff in the RM which just adds confusion to lack of understanding. Once again, the GNAT philosophy is to include the RM reference if and only if it is significantly helpful to the majority of users. We do not find many such examples! The argument that extra information should be supplied in an error message even if it is only useful to a very small number of users is dubious. It would for example equally well justify routinely adding a Russian translation of the message, along with a dubious RM reference. Once again, how about a specific example where an RM reference would help general users. Nick, you are writing an Ada compiler, that means you know the RM backwards and forwards and completely (or you don't have a chance), so you are definitely NOT the kind of person to whom the error messages are targetted (indeed I would think anyone knowing the RM that well would not in any case need RM references :-) Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologis -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own