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, MSGID_RANDY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,908bd475d3545aad X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Robert Dewar Subject: Re: PL/SQL -> Ada Date: 2000/03/30 Message-ID: <8bu5nd$5l0$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 604087170 References: <38DD3CA8.BF122672@wa8tzg.org> <38DE46E8.756F5A66@quadruscorp.com> <38DEB5C4.64CACCCC@wa8tzg.org> <38DF90E0.7BE629DD@quadruscorp.com> <38DFFEAE.8C694C4E@wa8tzg.org> <38E0EC54.A38F66CE@quadruscorp.com> <8bql8b$5mc$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <38E2486D.ADB30CCB@quadruscorp.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x28.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 205.232.38.14 Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. X-Article-Creation-Date: Thu Mar 30 00:05:12 2000 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDrobert_dewar Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.61 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 2000-03-30T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <38E2486D.ADB30CCB@quadruscorp.com>, "Marin D. Condic" wrote: > Well as often happens in Ada, a compiler can *correctly* handle > something by simply refusing to do it. Representation clauses are a good > example. (And, BTW, the usual area where I want to shoot the language > lawyers! :-) You try declaring a type and adding a rep clause that is > perfectly reasonable and the compiler rejects it for some reason and you > get frustrated. My experience is that when people get frustrated in this situation, it is VERY often because they have some fundamental misconceptions, or are thinking using fuzzy logic :-) It would be instructive if you would give specific examples. Remember we are asking for examples where the dreaded language lawyers are the ones giving you trouble, not just cases where compilers fail to accept reasonable optional representation clauses. Note that there is a well defined set of rep clauses that is REQUIRED to be accepted by the compiler, so presumably you must be talking about examples outside this set (otherwise you are simply pointing out bugs or shortcomings [no Annex C support] which is another matter entirely. The language lawyer says "Well, because this was here > and that rule collided with the other and the moon was in this phase and > Jupiter aligned with Mars, the compiler was perfectly within its rights > to reject your rep clause." My response ends up "That's all very > interesting and I'm so happy for you that your compiler doesn't have a > bug in it, but how the heck do I get what I *want* out of the damned > thing??!?!?!" Usually this is a case in which you simply do not understand some important and critical semantic principle. > To the practitioner, the language lawyer can be seen as a > stumbling block in the path to getting the job done. This is almost never an accurate reading of the situation. It is true that users often think that something should work without understanding things (like the person in some other thread who thought that "with Standard.Ada.Text_IO;" should be allowed with the "obvious" meaning. Unfortunately, what was obvious to him was in fact plain wrong. > I *do* understand the value > of language law and I'm *glad* we've got sharp lawyers around to make > sure compilers behave according to the rules, but just as real world > lawyers can hose-up a perfectly good business deal, language lawyers can > do the same in the programming world. Again, my experience is that when people feel this way it is simply that they do not know the language well enough and are missing some critical semantic points. Remember that the people who designed Ada 95 are highly pragmatic people who understand pragmatic issues very well, there was not a single theoretician in the design team from my point of view. > If you want specific examples, I'll be happy to discuss them off-line. I > deal with lots of different vendors from time to time and don't want to > get into besmirching specific products in public when the products are > in most other respects quite good. Well it would be interesting to see some examples, especially if you think my characterization above is unfair :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.