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,fedc2d05e82c9174 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com Subject: Re: Ada 83 - Sometimes still chosen Date: 1999/03/26 Message-ID: <7dfr7i$g9b$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 459295737 References: <87aex3pue4.fsf@mihalis.ix.netcom.com> <36F913E0.75F51763@lmco.com> <7dbcj3$e0l@dfw-ixnews7.ix.netcom.com> <7dbvd6$56q$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <7dc7tu$2uk@dfw-ixnews7.ix.netcom.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x13.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: Fri Mar 26 11:32:01 1999 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.04 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 1999-03-26T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <7dc7tu$2uk@dfw-ixnews7.ix.netcom.com>, Richard D Riehle 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 -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own