From: billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe, 2847 )
Subject: Re: What's really wrong with COBOL?
Date: 23 Mar 90 16:43:08 GMT [thread overview]
Message-ID: <8471@hubcap.clemson.edu> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 4877@ganymede.inmos.co.uk
From mph@lion.inmos.co.uk (Mike Harrison):
> Yes, the Ada specifications do provide a sort of interface contract,
> but they only enforce the *syntactic* (and perhaps *static* semantic)
> aspects of the interface... There is however, no support for checking
> the *dynamic* semantics of the interface...
To completely check the semantics of the interface is probably so
computationally complex as to be not realistically achievable. But
practically speaking there is a way to let Ada help you here as well.
Simply temporarily *remove* the modified procedure or function from
the specification and recompile. Then the Ada compiler will point out
*all* places at which the modified procedure or function was referenced.
Now recompile the "complete" specification, and verify that all the
points at which the semantically modified procedure or function was
referenced are OK with respect to the semantic modification. This
has the disadvantage of perhaps being overconservative -- leading you
to points at which the semantic change may not actually do any harm --
but it's certainly better than manually trying to track the effects of
the change, and in all probability it's the most practical solution.
Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1990-03-23 16:43 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 14+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
[not found] <420@mck-csc.UUCP>
1990-03-22 2:18 ` What's really wrong with COBOL? William Thomas Wolfe, 2847
1990-03-22 20:34 ` Jeffrey Weiss
1990-03-23 6:27 ` William Thomas Wolfe, 2847
1990-03-24 15:43 ` jim frost
1990-03-24 21:38 ` William Thomas Wolfe, 2847
1990-03-25 22:19 ` jim frost
1990-03-28 6:21 ` a.lawrence
1990-03-29 13:52 ` Mike Feldman
1990-03-25 3:41 ` Steve Bridges
1990-03-23 11:07 ` Mike Harrison
1990-03-23 16:43 ` William Thomas Wolfe, 2847 [this message]
1990-03-29 18:31 ` Andy DeFaria
1990-03-29 0:52 ext_iai
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
1990-06-02 2:39 jay
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