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 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,42427d0d1bf647b1 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Marin David Condic, 407.796.8997, M/S 731-93" Subject: Re: Ada Core Technologies and Ada95 Standards Date: 1996/04/29 Message-ID: <96042916334234@psavax.pwfl.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 152146727 sender: Ada programming language comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU x-vms-to: SMTP%"INFO-ADA@VM1.NODAK.EDU" newsgroups: comp.lang.ada x-vms-cc: CONDIC Date: 1996-04-29T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Ken Garlington writes: > >OK. Then you would agree that ACVC testing should be reduced or eliminated, >in favor of something else. I can accept this. What (if anything) would >you recommend be done in lieu of DoD "meddling" to improve compiler quality, >or would reducing/killing ACVC by itself improve compiler quality? > > Actually, what may have been a better idea as far as a validation suite for Ada goes, would have been to concentrate on the availability of features in *some* form. For example, rather than test an implementation to find out if they correctly handle every possible combination of generic formal parameter and issue appropriate error messages, why not concentrate on determining that an implementation handles generics *at all*? Check to see that it can handle some relatively straightforward set of cases and declare "Yup. These dudes have Generic Packages. They didn't leave that feature out. It may be buggy as hell, but it isn't a 'partial' language implementation." Look at some of the early "subset" Ada83 compilers and you can see where developers were having problems. They came out with compilers that didn't support tasking, generics, chapter 13 and, by consequence, much of the I/O. It would have been more useful from a "validation" standpoint to know that a given implementation would let you write programs using some/all of the major language features in some syntactically correct way. You could write your programs with some assurance that as the compilers got better, so would your code, but that you'd have usable features at some minimal level. Maybe we all more or less agree that the original validation goal was a little too aggressive. At what level it should have backed off is not at all easy to see. Pax, Marin Marin David Condic, Senior Computer Engineer ATT: 407.796.8997 M/S 731-93 Technet: 796.8997 Pratt & Whitney, GESP Fax: 407.796.4669 P.O. Box 109600 Internet: CONDICMA@PWFL.COM West Palm Beach, FL 33410-9600 Internet: MDCONDIC@AOL.COM =============================================================================== "If nobody else was violent, I could conquer the whole stupid planet with a butter knife." -- Dogbert ===============================================================================