Re: DECAda/VMS - calling GETJPI

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

Mike asked::

"Recommendation: Fix this typographical error through the proper channels,
but in the meanwhile, change your interpretation of modular types back
to that of the Rationale, change gnat to convert modular types without
giving a constraint_error, and please give a reference to the meeting
in England which overrides the Rationale and how I can participate in
future meetings of this sort."

This was a meeting of WG9 and the DR's (one of a few joint meetings at
this stage). Of course now the DR's no longer exist, so the issue is
WG9 meetings. At these meetings, participants are members of their
appointed national delegations. You need to apply through the proper
channels which vary from country to country if you wish to be a member
of the delegation from a given country.

There was no question of "overriding" the Rationale, since as I said, it is
not an official WG9 document (or for that matter an official anything
document). What the meeting in England did was decide to change the way
modular operations were handled, and in particular to change the semantics
of conversion to avoid the implicit modular conversion. There were a number
of closely related issues, and when considered together, it was clearly
an advantageous change, as evidenced by the fact that the vote in favor
of this change was unanimous by delegations.

The Rationale is an informal attempt to describe the reasoning behind the
major design decisions. It always had the trouble of tracking a moving
target, and in this case, it tracked an earlier vresion of the RM, and
the relevant section did not get properly updated.

As I said earlier, always read the RM for technical details on the language
(or a good book like Norman Cohen's book that accurately discusses the
language). Read the RM for a general appreciation of the design princiles,
but not for technical details.