Re: Kickstarter for beginning work on a new open-source Compiler

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"Lucretia" <laguest9000@googlemail.com> wrote in message 
news:2e025cd0-76c9-4c42-a635-b8e2876e5bff@googlegroups.com...
...
>Well that's a shame, could we possibly have:
...
>2) Have any private documents made public so that we or others who want
> to try to implement it, can do? That is, if there are any that are still 
> private.

No. ASIS (unlike the Ada standard) is owned by ISO, and we can't give away 
their "property". In any case, the updated ASIS standard draft was 
effectively rejected by the ASIS implementors (by ignoring it and doing 
their own thing). Vendors have told us outright that they don't think there 
is any value to an ASIS standard and that they won't support one if it is 
made. As such, there is no point in putting any more effort into it.

I suggest considering ASIS past Ada 95 as implementation-specific. Perhaps 
someday there will be agreement on a way forward, but it really only matters 
for people that want to port ASIS tools. At this point, that community 
appears to exist solely of J-P Rosen -- everybody else seems to be using 
GNAT ASIS only (or one of the Atego ASIS implementations only). So there's 
little point to a standard.

If you disagree, then you need to form your own ASIS WG, put pressure on 
ASIS vendors to define a consistent set of extensions and ways to plug the 
many holes in the ASIS standard, and then it's likely that the energy to 
actually update the standard will materialize. The key here is the pressure 
on vendors from customers -- they have to see a benefit from having a 
standard -- they don't see that now.

                                 Randy.