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,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f5d71,304c86061dc69dba X-Google-Attributes: gidf5d71,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,304c86061dc69dba X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,5cb36983754f64da X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,304c86061dc69dba X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-02-10 08:47:05 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshosting.com!nx01.iad01.newshosting.com!border1.nntp.ash.giganews.com!border2.nntp.sjc.giganews.com!border1.nntp.sjc.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.sjc.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 10:47:00 -0600 Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 11:46:59 -0500 From: "Robert I. Eachus" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.java Subject: Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language) References: <20040206174017.7E84F4C4114@lovelace.ada-france.org> <54759e7e.0402071124.322ea376@posting.google.com> <2460735.u7KiuvdgQP@linux1.krischik.com> <54759e7e.0402081525.50c7adae@posting.google.com> <54759e7e.0402091826.2847e0c@posting.google.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.147.77.160 X-Trace: sv3-U536bKDdRHXu78UsvHLWaMJzBgnPZViyv9jqbX4WUYijslTa+W7OYicAm1r9ASJX18ZfkNpOBxeNjlL!4aabuy4XZaoBpOuleQkZ/Ac8anVud90NWX8ncy4HZC7qDRjv+UFFL8cQDQY22w== X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.1 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:5402 comp.lang.c:21651 comp.lang.c++:18506 comp.lang.java:2837 Date: 2004-02-10T11:46:59-05:00 List-Id: Martin Dowie wrote: > The important thing is that there is nothing in the language > definition that _requires_ it to produce 'slow' code. One > of the design aims for Ada95 was to actually introduce > new language constructs that would actually allow faster > code to be produced, while retaining the reliability, ease > of maintenance, etc. Not quite true. There was an infamous feature in Ada 83 that seemed to require "extra" copies of vectors on certain vector processing CPUs without precise error checking. I remember one time when a compiler developer for a manufacturer of such vector processing supercomputers called with a complex question about what was required and what wasn't. We had a long discussion and she concluded that she could use the current Fortran back-end rules except for one case. After she hung up, what she had said percolated through my head, and I e-mailed a short Fortran example. Sure enough it produced garbage. So yes, Ada 83 required that you not produce garbage output. The Ada 95 rules may be somewhat different, but they still require that you make temporary copies when the alternative is junk results. In fact, where the Ada 83 and Ada 95 rules are different is that, in Ada 83, programs that discarded their results were still required to get the right answer in some cases. In Ada 95, you can compute wrong answers if the externally visible behavior of the program doesn't change. ;-) -- Robert I. Eachus "The war on terror is a different kind of war, waged capture by capture, cell by cell, and victory by victory. Our security is assured by our perseverance and by our sure belief in the success of liberty." -- George W. Bush