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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1901f265c928a511 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public Path: controlnews3.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 02 Jun 2004 00:04:14 -0500 Date: Wed, 02 Jun 2004 01:04:14 -0400 From: "Robert I. Eachus" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Typing in Ada References: <2i1t1lFij4g5U1@uni-berlin.de> <9ZRuc.8410$hB2.7017@nwrdny03.gnilink.net> <40BCE5E8.4040305@tidorum.fi> In-Reply-To: <40BCE5E8.4040305@tidorum.fi> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.147.90.114 X-Trace: sv3-hsXN171iuaX4F4+Feyb8nw36gUxPQfsTyGJqIjJhAZDizb59KNeSQN31xeCpxzZ0gO1PteUx71oFDf7!d11+uC/tJe3uyVW/01T8w82rhnAzCVc+Kzg4bvC85CISre5BGPhvTTrFqYyEQw== X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.1 Xref: controlnews3.google.com comp.lang.ada:1011 Date: 2004-06-02T01:04:14-04:00 List-Id: Niklas Holsti wrote: > To return to Nick Robert's example, the numbers 100 and 200 should > either come from the requirements specification ("The program shall be > able to count up to 100 apples and 200 oranges...") or should appear in > the software user manual ("The program can count up to 100 apples and > 200 oranges"). So then it is clear that the program satisfies its > requirements (or it won't compile) and satisfies its user manual, > whatever range Standard.Integer has on the current platform. Amen! It would be nice if one tenth the energy that has gone into the thread started by a misunderstanding about whether Ada was being used in the 7E7 project went into evangelizing simple fundamental points like this. Then no matter what programming language was used, the software would have a much better chance of being right. It is not a selling point that Ada makes it easier to trace requirements, unless the person you are selling to understands why requirements traceability is important. Yes, this is an advantage of Ada. But before you can sell Ada, you need people to understand why requirements documents, software development plans and software user manuals are important living documents that need to be maintained interactively during software development. Anyone who thinks that the requirements document shouldn't be changed during the software development stage hasn't worked on a real project. There are going to be some "boilerplate" pages in requirements document. But outside of those, you should expect to add a page or more of footnotes to each page in the original requirements document. These should note "derived" requirements which are a consequence of the implementation chosen, clarifications of requirements, and any really actual changes in requirements agreed to by all parties. I've called them footnotes, but only because the requirements document may also be a legal contract. -- Robert I. Eachus "The terrorists rejoice in the killing of the innocent, and have promised similar violence against Americans, against all free peoples, and against any Muslims who reject their ideology of murder. Their barbarism cannot be appeased, and their hatred cannot be satisfied. There's only one way to deal with terror: We must confront the enemy and stay on the offensive until these killers are defeated." -- George W. Bush