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: fac41,2c6139ce13be9980 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,2c6139ce13be9980 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,3d3f20d31be1c33a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,2c6139ce13be9980 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public From: doylep@ecf.toronto.edu (Patrick Doyle) Subject: Re: Interface/Implementation (was Re: Design by Contract) Date: 1997/09/13 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 272191932 Sender: news@ecf.toronto.edu (News Administrator) References: X-Nntp-Posting-Host: skule.ecf Organization: University of Toronto, Engineering Computing Facility Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.eiffel Date: 1997-09-13T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article , Robert Dewar wrote: >Patrick says > >< >Then we must ask, if everyone puts all the declarations at the top anyway, >why not let the computer do it for us?>> > > >I find this question a bit amazing. Normally I would not expect anyone >who is sufficiently familiar with the separation of spec and implementation >to ask it. It seems these subtle personal comments are getting more and more common, especially in this thread. Can't we just stick to the issues without expressing our amazement at others' lack of experience? >Of course the computer can derive the bare bones details about a spec, e.g. >the syntax of the subprogram declaration, from the body, but it most >certainly cannot derive automatically appropriate high level comments that >provide the necessary information for a client to use the subprogram. The comments in Eiffel are written in such a way that the tools can extract the interface comments automatically. >Certainly no Ada programmer would ever ask this question Objection! Hearsay! >the idea of >deriving specifications automatically from implementations is fundamentally >upside-down! I'm not suggesting that we *derive* one from the other, just that we can write them together, and *extract* one from the other. I agree that the former is backward. -PD -- -- Patrick Doyle doylep@ecf.utoronto.ca