Re: Ada95 to ANSI_C converter

[kst@sd.aonix.com (Keith Thompson)]

I've deleted comp.lang.c from the Newsgroups header.

In <dewar.860184524@merv> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
[...]
> Anecdotally (we really should collect data on this, we have the raw data),
> we have the impression that the Ada 95 tests tend to track user programs
> more closely. They are certainly much less full of "nasty test cases".

I've always been a bit suspicious of the "user-oriented" philosophy of the
Ada 95 tests.  To over-simplify, there are only finitely many language
features, but there are potentially infinitely many user programs.
It's a lot easier to test the former than the latter.  The fact that a
compiler had to pass a bunch of somebody else's "user-oriented" tests
doesn't necessarily imply that it will work properly on *my* code.

As I said, though, this is an over-simplification.  The feature-oriented
Ada 83 ACVCs certainly didn't cover the entire language, especially when
you consider interactions between features.

Does anyone have specific examples of things that the Ada 95 ACVCs
deliberately don't test, that Ada 83-style ACVCs would have?

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst@sd.aonix.com <http://www.aonix.com> <*>
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