Re: Realtime/embedded project to help with employment.

["Jeffrey Creem" <jeff@thecreems.com>]

"Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com> wrote in message
news:3F3F703E.4080802@attbi.com...
> Simon Wright wrote:
>
> > I seem to remember that this may be a problem: the options you need to
> > validate may not be those you would want/need to use in a real-world
> > application.
> >
> > Apologies if this is FUD ...
>
> Yes, it is true, but it is hardly FUD.  GNAT for example, has several
> dozen compiler options that normally result in an unvalidated compiler.
>   AFAIK, the only option you normally need to use in validation mode is
> -gnato.
>

What about -fstack-check?


> But all that is irrelevant to YOU.  If you want to compile with some set
> of compiler options, ACT will do the work to validate with that option
> set.  This may mean that some ACATS tests will print failed, and ACT
> will have to document why it is "difficult or impossible" to pass those
> tests in your circumstances, or why those tests are not applicable in
> your situation.
>

I suspect as someone who probably gets paid to be an outside auditor
this will shock and astound you (and what I mean by that is not surprise you
at all :)....But in my experience, most of the time when a customer requires
validation
they don't really know why they are asking for it. They don't usually take
the time
to understand why they even want a validated compiler and will not dig into
the compiler option thing and are just happy if they see some piece of paper
that says validated......

Also, I can't tell you the number of times over the
years I have heard people say...oh...there is no validated compiler for
that, I guess
we have to use a C compiler (which of course is probably not validated at
all)....

The only thing worse than the validation/certification mess is the mind
numbing implementation  of the Joint
Technical Architecture (JTA)...perhaps especially the Army specific version
of the Joint Technical Architecture (Gotta love it...A branch specific
version of Joint standard
that they still call Joint....ugg)..

Note that the intent of the JTA (and even the JTA-A) seems pure enough but
the way these things get implemented makes one
really consider wanting to build happy meals instead of software.