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From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Ada 95 Numerics questions for the experts
Date: 1997/09/01
Message-ID: <dewar.873149375@merv>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 269424139
References: <dewar.872745692@merv> <EFoIvv.JtA.0.-s@inmet.camb.inmet.com>
Organization: New York University
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-09-01T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Tuck said

<<As far as packing to an array of 3-bits per element versus 4-bits per
element, we have generally chosen to follow the recommendations of the
RM.  Going beyond the RM is not always in the customer's interest,
as they may have to move to another Ada compiler at some point, and
one of the goals of standardization is portability between implementations.
>>

This is certainly a legitimate goal, but very different from the goal of
GNAT which is to be as inclusive as possible, so that it is as easy as
possible to move code *from* other compilers *to* GNAT.

We have found many customers who need close packing at arbitrary bit
sizes (or GNAT would not support it!)