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: 103376,1ea19776e3073a96 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Robert Dewar Subject: Re: C/C++ programmer giving Ada95 a chance -- writing an emulator. Date: 2000/04/01 Message-ID: <8c4vop$h3o$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 605246700 References: <38e148e2.5089627@news.shreve.net> <38e19656.17008608@news.shreve.net> <38E3D0A5.4F93106F@Raytheon.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x33.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 205.232.38.14 Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. X-Article-Creation-Date: Sat Apr 01 14:06:23 2000 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDrobert_dewar Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.61 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 2000-04-01T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <38E3D0A5.4F93106F@Raytheon.com>, "Samuel T. Harris" wrote: > It is interesting how two documents from two different > sets of folks concerning basically the same things > can be so very different in style. Note that it is not so much a difference in authors style here, as a very deliberate design choice of favoring formalism and supposed precision over readability. I am not sure everyone on WG9 and the reviewers group really understood what a very big change was being made. The above note is *exactly* what concerned me when I tried to argue for retaining the original style. I suspect that if the original Ada 83 RM had been written in this style we simply would not have achieved the pretty much unique status among languages that practicing programmers use the defining document as a reference. Luckily we benefit from history here, Ada programmers from 83 days are so used to operating in this mode that they continue the habit, even though it is harder these days. Is the Ada 95 RM more precise? I am not 100% convinced at all. Looking at the set of AI's that are coming in, we are seeing the same kinds of minor gaps and errors that happened with the Ada 83 RM, I would be hard put to say there was a big qualitative difference in the scope of AI's considered in the two cases. Bob (Duff) what do you think on that score? [I think Bob's input here is useful since he knows both RM's well and both sets of AI's, and if biased at all would be biased to thinking the 95 AI's are less significant (*) (*) in fact, I never noticed Bob's viewpoints being perceptibly affected by bias of any kind :-) even though he is constantly warning that as an author he may be biased! Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.