Re: Ada Core Technologies and Ada95 Standards

[john@assen.demon.co.uk (John McCabe)]

dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:

<..snip..>

>   Passing the ACVC suite is not a trivial excercise, and I think all
>   vendors would agree that they have had to devote considerable resources
>   to this task. These are resources not available for other quality
>   improving tasks. This means that we have to be very careful that we
>   do not divert too many resources and reach a point of diminishing
>   returns.

This paragraph confuses me.

I believe that if the compiler vendors were producing high quality
products that conformed to the language, then passing the ACVC suite
should be a cinch.

What you seem to be saying is that compiler vendors are assigning
resources to ensure that they pass the ACVC suite, and in doing so are
compromising the quality of their product.

This type of situation is very common in everyday life - you just have
to look at the number of crap drivers on the road (well, in the UK
anyway) to see that this philosophy is dangerous. People are not
taught to be good drivers, they're taught to pass the driving test,
and your statement above suggests that Ada compilers are not designed
to compile Ada, they're designed to pass the ACVC suite.


Best Regards
John McCabe <john@assen.demon.co.uk>