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,f34f1a1939dc0c40 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "William J. Thomas" Subject: Re: conditional compilation Date: 2000/08/01 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 653433975 References: <87d7jvp3qq.fsf@chiark.greenend.org.uk> <39857E5F.33C40014@acm.com> <3985FB16.82D140BB@below.for.email.address> <8m6log$r3a$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <398749EF.15829554@below.for.email.address> <39875339.2DF06D6@below.for.email.address> X-Priority: 3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 X-Trace: eagle.america.net 965178852 206.27.102.9 (Tue, 01 Aug 2000 21:14:12 EDT) Organization: 24hoursupport.com X-MSMail-Priority: Normal NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 21:14:12 EDT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-08-01T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: How much dead code would you like in your flight control laws when your inherently unstable fighter aircraft is pulling 6 G's. Safety Critical Systems and Mission Critical Systems in general should not be the home of endless lines of code that act as scaffolding and flying buttresses through a relatively limited phase of the software lifecycle. The original developers of the language knew what they were doing when they prohibited its use. The problem is best solved with adjunct tools, and good configuration control, not language features. Besides that, just try to certify a piece of code with the FAA that has all sorts of conditional compilation in it. As a matter of fact in level A certification even that little piece of Ada code used in the previous example would raise a flag. Keep it out of the language, its lived for close to twenty years without it so don't spoil a good thing. As stated before there are other languages that make extensive use of it, if conditional compilation is what you must have then by all means use them. WJT