Re: MI for Ada

[eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)]

In article <7acbdd$316$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com writes:

  > So Robert Eachus' implication that there has been some
  > shift in the Ada 95 design here is, as they would say
  > in the British parliament, a "terminological inexactitude".

   Sorry, I always thought that the "no unauthorized extensions" was a
clever in joke, but I guess it is a little too in for this forum.  It
looks like a draconian rule, but in practice it is a license with very
little limitation except good documentation.  For example, it has
always been perfectly legitimate in terms of validation to have a
compiler which under the influence of some mysterious switch compiled
FORTRAN or C instead of Ada.  In fact, some compilers that do just
that based on the name of the source file presented to them. ;-)

   As Robert points out, there is no real difference between the Ada
83 and Ada 95 validation rules in terms of conformance, even though
the RM wording is a little different:

   Ada 83 RM 1.1.2(6-7):

   "(e) Contains no variations except where the standard permits.

   "(f) Specifies all such permitted variations in the manner
prescribed by the standard."

   Ada 95 RM 1.1.3(6-7):

   "- Contain no variations except those explicity permitted by this
International Standard, or those that are impossible or impractical to
avoid given the implementation's execution environment;

   "- Specify all such variations in the manner prescribed by this
International Standard."

   In Ada 83, these variations were specified in Appendix F, and in
Ada 95 they are found in Annex M.  In either version, if you care
about conformance to the standard you will have a copy of this close
at hand, along with the Validation Summary Report.

   
--

					Robert I. Eachus

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