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=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: border1.nntp.ams2.giganews.com!backlog3.nntp.ams3.giganews.com!backlog3.nntp.ams.giganews.com!border1.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.roellig-ltd.de!open-news-network.org!matrix.darkstorm.co.uk!reality.xs3.de!news.jacob-sparre.dk!loke.jacob-sparre.dk!pnx.dk!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: J Kimball Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Augusta: An open source Ada 2012 compiler (someday?) Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 03:18:21 -0500 Organization: Jacob Sparre Andersen Research & Innovation Message-ID: References: <1f0a85a6-ea4d-4d30-8537-0ce9063f992a@googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ip174-70-58-159.om.om.cox.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: loke.gir.dk 1395649103 31477 174.70.58.159 (24 Mar 2014 08:18:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@jacob-sparre.dk NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 08:18:23 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:27.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/27.0 In-Reply-To: X-Original-Bytes: 3497 Xref: number.nntp.dca.giganews.com comp.lang.ada:185314 Date: 2014-03-24T03:18:21-05:00 List-Id: On 03/20/2014 06:15 PM, Randy Brukardt wrote: > "J-P. Rosen" wrote in message > news:lgeh3m$gqq$1@dont-email.me... >> Le 20/03/2014 11:23, Lucretia a écrit : >>>> I am not as naive as I probably sound. I fully understand that such a >>>>> project is massive and not likely to actually ever be completed. >>> As long as you don't expect all the annexes, I don't see why not. >>> >> All those who have been involved in an Ada compiler will tell you that >> it is a lot more difficult than it appears, unless you stick to the >> Pascal subset and don't care for validation. >> >> In the early days of Ada, we have seen compilers announcing proudly that >> they passed 95% of the validation and that delivery was expected in a >> few weeks - they never succeeded to pass the remaining 5%. >> >> For example, and as a test, make sure you are able to understand the >> implications of 4.3.3 (a nightmare for code generation), or 13.14, or >> 3.10.2(3/2)... > > Heck, we (the ARG) aren't quite sure how you implement accessibility checks > for Ada 2005 and Ada 2012 (see AI12-0016-1 for some thinking); you could > waste a lot of time trying to figure that out. And like J-P says, a 95% > solution isn't good for much -- the real solution is 95% different. :-) > > It's for good reason that 3.10.2 is informally named "The Heart of > Darkness"! ;-) > > Randy. > > You are listening to what you're saying aren't you? I know we joke about things when we're uncomfortable with them. The people writing the rules don't know how to enforce them? There's an actual part of the manual that has a nick name "The Heart of Darkness!". Your own compiler can't even compete because of the labyrinth of rules. Ada has become the American tax code. It's becoming abundantly clear that there has to be a massive break in backward compatibility in the next revision of the language that makes writing compilers easier, not just keeping AdaCore in business, but breaking out of the framework of Ada 95. We find ourselves discussing this regularly in #ada on Freenode. Many of us see Ada as a sinking ship because of all its baggage. The ideals are strong, but the implementation is losing us. I surely need to review the AIs for the next revision to see what's happening.