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 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,d1df6bc3799debed X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) Subject: Re: Not intended for use in medical, Date: 1997/05/17 Message-ID: X-Deja-AN: 242804607 References: <3.0.32.19970423164855.00746db8@mail.4dcomm.com> <5kl9qc$g4d@bcrkh13.bnr.ca> <5kmek2$9re@bcrkh13.bnr.ca> <33727FA5.5C7A@sprintmail.com> <3374C19F.15FE@sprintmail.com> <3376CF85.3E15@sprintmail.com> Organization: New York University Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-05-17T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Robert Eachus said << Jean Ichbiah was concerned about the syntax, not the addition of the features. Incidently, Jean was right that his syntax was "cleaner" or looked better, but Tucker's notation was more useful because it allowed (eventually) the separation of concepts which are hopelessly confused in other OO languages. The vote on the issue reflected this, was it 2-2 with five abstentions? (Hmmm. I think that the US abstained with the announced intent of changing to the winning side, so the final was 3-2-4.) In any case, a close decision on a very subtle issue. Incidently, Tucker did make some changes in response to Jean's issues, and the final result is probably better than either original proposal.>> This misremembers the history (as you will remember, I was very much involved in this discussion). I am not sure whether Robert was present at all the DR meetings that lead up to this, I think not ... The initial issue was Jean's concern that "tagged" is a strange word and that we should use "class" instead. This was really as much a concern about using familiar terminology, rather than any purely technical concerns. Indeed from a purely technical point of view, avoiding class, with its baggage from C++ has some advantages. Tuck strongly opposed this change, focussing purely on the technical aspects. The DR's overwhelmingly agreed, and voted by a large margin to make the change, despite Tuck's objections. BUT, and this is a big BUT, they did NOT agree on a syntax. Jean wanted class type x is ... but even some of those strongly supporting the idea of changing the word were opposed to this prefix notation, and the issue of what syntax to use was left open. So the DR decision was clear: change tagged to class, and look for a good syntax. And we left the matter up to Salem (where Robert Eachus was present). At Salem, Tuck gave a long and impassioned defence of tagged, and Jean gave a long and impassioned argument for not just class, but class AND the prefix syntax above. This was of course a serious tactical mistake, but Jean felt he was right, and insisted on presenting these together. Mostly, the delegations were annoyed by the huge amount of effort that had been spent on this relatively unimportant (as they saw it) issue, especi9ally by the mapping team, and that mostly explains the large number of abstentions (the vote was 2-2-4). However, it did not entirely explain the abstentions. At least one delegation in particular *strongly* favored class over tagged, but did not like the prefix notation. They reacted by abstaining, hoping that we could still get class without the prefix notation. That was of coruse a tactical error on their part, the proper thing to achieve their aim would be to have followed along with the proposal, and then look for a better syntax in the aftermath. It is clear that if the vote had been taken again with a bit better understanding, that this delegation would have voted yes, giving 3-2-3. The US delegation abstained, on the grounds that this was the best syntehsis of the opinions of the design team (and Tuck), and other members of the US delegation who strongly favored changing tagged to class. I was the one who suggested that we join the winning side, which ever it was, on the grounds that either way, the best thing was to have a clear as possible decision. Since this was a vote to CHANGE something, a tie fails, and consequently the US delegation voted against to make this decision clear. Many people still feel this decision was a mistake. Tagged is an odd word, and it is awkward when people ask if Ada has classes to have to mumble a bit. But in retrospect it is relatively unimportant, and I ssympathize with the delegations who abstained because they felt too much fuss was being made over a minor issue (incidentally, I am not guessing at this dynamic, several people got up after the vote to present rather angry opinions that we were wasting a lot of time on a trivial issue). This was indeed one of the more contentious points in the history of the development of the Ada 95 design -- any language design goes through debates of this kind. What is remarkable is that the final result in the Ada 95 case was that the standard was approved unanimously (by the delegations that had been involved in the discussions, I believe there were a couple of abstentions from official members who had never been heard from or seen). To me that is a significant achievment. Yes, we had lots of disagreements as we went along, not the least of which was the fundamental tension between trying to keep the changes small and managable from an implementation point of view, and adding all sorts of wonderful features. But in the end, we syntehsized a result that all of us were comfortable with. To me, this was technical discussion and cooperation working in the best possible way. Lots of different opinions, but everyone listening to everyone else, and working hard together to take the best of everyones input. Robert Dewar