Re: Ada 83 - Sometimes still chosen

[robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com]

In article <7dc7tu$2uk@dfw-ixnews7.ix.netcom.com>,
  Richard D Riehle <laoXhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>  On some projects some programming managers feel it is
>  appropriate to freeze even the version of the compiler
>  used to develop some long-lived software product.  That
>  is, once the satellite is deployed, all updates will be
>  made using exactly the same language and version of the
>  compiler used for the original development.

Richard, of *course* I know this (I am after all working as
an Ada compiler vendor these days! :-)

Yes, of course some projects are still using Ada 83, and
there are even a few new projects using Ada 83 (though this
is very rapidly dwindling).

Absolutely no one that I know of considers this
unreasonable, for all the reasons you state.

But that has nothing whatsoever to do with the point at
hand, which, please remember, is the following.

If someone asks a question about Ada on comp.lang.ada, do
we assume that they are asking about Ada 95, a language
that has now been around for four years, or do we by
default worry them about the possibility of different
answers for the now obsolete Ada 83 (obsolete *is* the
right word when a new ISO standard supplants an old one).

I think it is very important NOT to confuse answers by
referring to shortcomings in Ada 83. If people are working
on a project using Ada 83, they should know what they are
doing, and ask the question appropriately. Sure, I can see
that students might not know, but they are almost *sure*
to be using Ada 95.

I see no reason to confuse the discussions and answers on
comp.lang.ada for the sake of the small number of people
working on large projects under the conditions you describe
who also do not know enough to specify Ada 83 when they ask
a question!

Robert Dewar



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