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From: Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com>
Subject: Re: Ammo-zilla
Date: 1999/10/31
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In article <7vb3c4$8a21@news.cis.okstate.edu>,
  dvdeug@x8b4e53cd. (David Starner) wrote:
> I said nothing about vendors. As long as there are
> otherwise-reasonable Ada compilers that don't garbage collect,
> good Ada programs must assume they're running on that system.

I strongly object to this. There are many optional features in
Ada, including for example the entire information systems
annex, or complex arithmetic in annex G. It is absolutely
perfectly reasonable to write Ada programs using these
optional features providing that you have a clear understanding
of the requirements you place on the Ada compiler as you do it.

> I once pointed out that integer'base could be an infinite
> precision integer type. (Robert Dewar said yes, but it wasn't
> something that was going to get added to GNAT.)

More accurately, he said that it would not be added unless
there was significant customer demand -- there is none!

> Let's say that it was added to GNAT.
> Good portable Ada code still couldn't depend on having 70
> digit+  integer types.

There is nothing bad about Ada code that depends on optional
features of Ada. Do you really think that any Ada code that
uses tasking priorities is bad? Of course not!!! It is just
that such code requires an Ada compiler that implements this
optional Ada feature.

> As a side question: Ada 95's designers must have been familiar
> with Modula 3's support of garbage collection while letting
> real time stuff keep track of its own memory. What stopped
> them from adopting something like that for Ada 95?

They were quite familiar, they were unconvinced (perhaps they
were unaware of any significant examples of large mission
critical real time systems implemented in Modula-3 that they
found convincing :-) :-)


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