Re: Ada Core Technologies and Ada95 Standards

[dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Ken writes

"Unfortunately, real facets fit togethger. Does the ACVC fit with the other
facets (e.g. at the vendor)? Should the ACVC grow (quantitatively or qualitative
ly)?
Should it shrink? Who knows? Who will ever know, given the open hostility to
discussing the subject?"

That's a bit puzzling, I thought we had been discussion this for a while.
I am cerainly not hostile to discussing it.

The concern with the ACVC has always been that it both contributes to
quality and detracts from it. It contributes by doing a lot of
thorough testing of a wide spread set of features.

It detracts by forcing resources to be spent on validation that miht
better be spent on other activities that would be more cost effective
in improving compiler quality.

In developing the 2.1 suite, the answer Ken's two questions have bot
both been yes. Yes, it should grow, by adding more tests that are more
user-oriented, i.e. more realistic with respect to typical use of the
language, and of course it should grow by testing the Ada 95 features.

Yes, it should shrink, by removing minimal value tests, or tests of
pathological features not worth testing.

Ken, have you examined the tests in the new test suite. I think they are
a significant step forward from the 1.11 tests, and it would be interesting
to know what you think.

The test suite development is an open process, and prereleaseed versions
of the tests are availabel. Comments from everyone, including certainly
users of Ada 95, are welcome.