Philosophically speaking

Philosophically speaking

[Ray Harwood]

Several inquiries of late have asked what I consider more "operational"
questions of Ada as opposed to actual "language capability" questions.
Two particularly come to mind: (1) Is there a random number generator? and
(2) How do I write to specific screen locations (presuming, I suppose,
VT100-style cursor commands).

I'd like to suggest to all who may not have done so to review Michael
Feldman's implementation of the Dining Philospoher's Problem (I think
it was sent in INFO-ADA V90 # 240, but I'd have to recheck the actual
number).  I used this program in my Ada class, and frankly, it DOES
have screen control and random number generation... as well as a simple
and easy-to-follow (IMHO) implementation of something "relatively real".

Ray Harwood

Re: Philosophically speaking

[(George C. Harrison) Norfolk State University]

In article <96A6DC7B9022350B@Arizona.edu>, RHARWOOD@EAST.Pima.edu (Ray Harwood) writes:
> I'd like to suggest to all who may not have done so to review Michael
> Feldman's implementation of the Dining Philospoher's Problem (I think
> it was sent in INFO-ADA V90 # 240, but I'd have to recheck the actual
> number).  I used this program in my Ada class, and frankly, it DOES
> have screen control and random number generation... as well as a simple
> and easy-to-follow (IMHO) implementation of something "relatively real".
> 
> Ray Harwood


I can "ditto" that, Ray.  I have used a Dining Philosphers' Problem example 
that was very similar, but I am drawn to this one for it's examples in 
simplicity, modularily, and portability.  This one also will be "torn apart" in
my Ada class this semster.  

George
-- George C. Harrison -------------- || -- My opinions and observations --
---|| Professor of Computer Science  || -- Only. -------------------------
---|| Norfolk State University, ---- || ----------- Pray for Peace -------
---|| 2401 Corprew Avenue, Norfolk, Virginia 23504 -----------------------
---|| INTERNET:  g_harrison@vger.nsu.edu ---------------------------------

Re: Philosophically speaking

[Michael Feldman]

In article <525.279f1e40@vger.nsu.edu> g_harrison@vger.nsu.edu ((George C. Harrison) Norfolk State University) writes:
>In article <96A6DC7B9022350B@Arizona.edu>, RHARWOOD@EAST.Pima.edu (Ray Harwood) writes:
>> I'd like to suggest to all who may not have done so to review Michael
>> Feldman's implementation of the Dining Philospoher's Problem (I think
>> it was sent in INFO-ADA V90 # 240, but I'd have to recheck the actual
>> number).  I used this program in my Ada class, and frankly, it DOES
>> have screen control and random number generation... as well as a simple
>> and easy-to-follow (IMHO) implementation of something "relatively real".
>> 
>> Ray Harwood
>
>
>I can "ditto" that, Ray.  I have used a Dining Philosphers' Problem example 
>that was very similar, but I am drawn to this one for it's examples in 
>simplicity, modularily, and portability.  This one also will be "torn apart" in
>my Ada class this semster.  
>
>George

George and Ray, I really appreciate the good reviews of this example.
If anyone didn't catch it the first time, e-mail me and I'll send a
shell archive of it.

I said I would report back on the portability results. I have had a number
of reports, none of which showed any problems. I think the program
represents solid portable Ada. Here is a summary of the results. I am
basically just reporting vendors' names instead of "platforms," because
most of a vendors' engineering decisions are made in the front end and
middle passes of an Ada system, and I think it's a safe bet that if the
program, is correct for vendor X, platform A, it'll be so for vendor X,
platform B. (If there are exceptions here, let me know!). The vendor
families for which Portable Diners has been tested successfully are:

Alsys
DEC
Intermetrics
Irvine
Meridian
RR
Tartan
TeleSoft
Verdix

These are the major suppliers of Ada. This program has been run on 
most major platforms from Macs and PCs to Crays and IBM mainframes,
with all the usual Vax, Sun, and HP gear in between. If anyone can
contribute more tests, I'd love to have your results. For example:

DDC-I?
NYU Ada/Ed?
Rational?
York?

Good luck.

Mike Feldman