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: 103376,e29c511c2b08561c X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) Subject: Re: Is the "Ada mandate" being reconsidered? Date: 1996/06/13 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 160493218 references: <4mq7mg$8hs@jake.probe.net> <4peu0v$rfq@news15.erols.com> <1996Jun10.114827.26046@relay.nswc.navy.mil> <4pk5sm$i7k@gde.GDEsystems.COM> <4pn0rs$mbe@gde.GDEsystems.COM> <4pnd5c$6j7@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> <4ppceg$gha@gde.GDEsystems.COM> organization: Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-06-13T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Tom said "Ah, well perhaps I am too tied to the "old" Ada business. It used to be that before you could claim you even had a product you would perform a validation on the compiler. This put you on the "validated compilers list", a form of advertising. It was also recognized that validation was merely the first step of producing an Ada product. I mean validation doesn't even require you to produce a debugger! It doesn't address the quality of the generated code at all. But, validation does at least test that the compiler does successfully process the Ada language (at least to some minimal level). " Yes, you are too tied to the old Ada business. Sure validation is important, but during the transition period to Ada 95, it is less important than in the traditional Ada 83 setting. Also validation does not mean so much during the transitional period. Of 14 compilers in the validated compiler list right now, several (6?) pass NONE of the Ada 95 tests, they are Ada 83 compilers only. If you need an Ada 95 compiler, you have to figure out what the best choice is. In some cases, a non-validated compiler may be the best choice. For example, you may do better to get a full language compiler that is not validated yet, than a validated compiler which does not implement any of the Ada 95 features yet. Eventually (a year from now), the validation procedures will fall more in line with what you are used to, but right now, validation does not have quite the same significance that you are used to. This deinitely causes some confusion! There are government projects that require Ada 95 and require a validated compiler, and will find that right now, if they stick to the valiated compiler list, they will be forced to choose a compiler that implements NONE of the Ada 95 features. I expect that a lot more compilers will show up on the list soon. We could validate a lot of targets with GNAT very soon if that were our highest priority, but we will probably wait will we can do a bunch together (we will certainly be validating the Alpha VMS version later this year, and probably several others). RObert Dewar ACT