Re: Your wish list for Ada 202X

[Jacob Sparre Andersen <jacob@jacob-sparre.dk>]

Randy Brukardt <randy@rrsoftware.com> wrote:

> "Jacob Sparre Andersen" <jacob@jacob-sparre.dk> wrote in message 
> news:87bnwrn1m9.fsf@adaheads.sparre-andersen.dk...
> ...
>> As there is no ACATS for Ada (2012) or Ada 2005, it is difficult for us
>> customers to be sure of the state of the compilers we have to choose
>> between.
>
> Huh? ACATS 3.0 for Ada 2005 has been available since 2008.

Thanks for letting me know.  I don't know how I have managed to miss
it.  I apologise for spreading incorrect information. :-(

> An updated version 3.1 was issued in January, for use aftter April
> 1st. It's not as complete as one might like, but it surely exists and
> tests all of the really important new features of Ada 2005.

Good to know.

>> My three big wishes for Ada are that:
>>
>> 1) ACATS is updated to match the current Ada standard.
>
> ACATS 4.0 is under active development and should be released in the
> next few months. I just released the first snapshot last week, see
> http://www.ada-auth.org/acats.html.

I'll take a look.

>> 2) Any new standard is published _with_ a matching edition of ACATS.
>
> That's of course impractical as the same person (that is, me) is
> responsible for both. Finishing up a standard is a full time
> job. Doing the ACATS afterwards works well because it provides me
> something to do in between major Standards work. Else I'd have to get
> a real job and would most likely be unavailable for future work of any
> kind.

Good point.  I appreciate your work on editing the standard.

> The ARG has a discussion item on the agenda for the next meeting as to
> whether we should require ACATS tests from ARG members, which would
> certainly decrease the time lag. But it also has the possibility of
> preventing a lot of work on the standard, by making it many times more
> difficult for simpler issues. Several ARG members have indicated that
> they have no interest in writing ACATS tests, so we would stand to
> lose participation. (And we need more, not less participation!)

Another good point.

>> 3) The ARG establishes a process for expanding ACATS with
>>    user-provided examples.
>
> The ACATS has *always* taken user-submitted tests. There are examples
> in the ACATS going back as far as 1990. You can find out about
> submitting test on the user-submitted test page:
> http://www.ada-auth.org/submit.html. Most the tests that I'm using to
> create ACATS 4.0 are user-submitted.

Ahh...  Another bit of "secret" ACAA documentation.  It looks like I
should keep quiet about ACATS until I've expanded my study of the
ada-auth.org web site.

> As far as putting arbitrary user-provided stuff into the ACATS, that's
> a bad idea because it misinterprets the point of the ACATS.

I agree completely with you on that point.  But even if the example the
user starts out with isn't necessarily an ideal candidate for a formal
conformity test, it might be possible to guide the author in that
direction, such that the example can be transformed into a (number of)
formal conformity test(s).

> That said, it would be great if someone created a lightly-managed
> repository of user-provided examples for Ada. I tried to create such a
> reposistory back in the Ada 9x days, but no one other than me wanted
> to contribute to it.  Perhaps some other organization would have
> better luck.

Does that repository still exist?  I think I know a number of Ada users,
who would be happy to provide examples for such a repository.

Greetings,

Jacob (just another Ada user)
-- 
»What fun is it being "cool" if you can't wear a sombrero?«