Re: ObjectAda and Feb 29th

[Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com>]

On 8 Mar 2000, Hyman Rosen wrote:
> Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes:
> > Well clearly Nick knows that the ANSI C++ standard has been
> > issued, otherwise he would not be wondering whether it was
> > stablized. Perhaps (not at all unreasonably) he is wondering
> > whether this standard is stable. Since almost no one exactly
> > implements all of it yet, the question seems reasonable :-)
> 
> Are many ANSI/ISO standards unstable? Anyway, since you frequently
> point out that GNAT is the only Ada compiler which implements all
> of the Annexes of the Ada standard, I could equally well conclude
> that the Ada standard has not stabilized either.

No, that would be a bad comparison. The Annexes are optional, i.e., not 
part of the core Ada language. Surely you know this. 

A better argument would note that the existence of compiler bugs implies 
that few compilers implement any standard, but this sort of nitpicking, 
while logically correct, is unhelpful. 

Due to the way C++ evolved, implementations have varied quite a bit
amongst themselves, and the divergence from the ISO standard is still 
quite large compared to the divergence of typical Ada compilers from the
standard. Whatever else you may think of Ada vs C++, I don't think you 
can make a reasonable case that C++ is comparable to Ada in terms of 
standard conformance.

-- Brian