Re: Required Metrics

["Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org>]

"Robert Dewar" <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8f279n$me2$1@nnrp1.deja.com...

> I think the entire problem is that in the realm of software
> engineering, you define a set of "requirements", and then
> you can tell whether you have done a good job of implementing
> the software by seeing if it meets these requirements.
>
> It is, I guess, quite understandable, if quite wrong, for people
> to make the mistake of thinking that a language definition is
> like such a requirements document, and that you will be able
> to tell if a vendor has done a good job of writing an Ada
> compiler by seeing if it has met these requirements.
>
> That's quite wrong of course, the defining language document
> is not a set of requirements in this sense at all. Well more
> properly it is a small part of the requirements. Left out
> entirely are issues of performance, reliability, efficiency,
> usability, maintainability etc etc.
>
> By the way Ken, you questioned me saying that you were one of
> the people arguing for inclusion of these ill-defined
> requirements in the language. I may remember wrong, but I
> distinctly remember you arguing for this approach in the
> meetings we had on safety-critical requirements, and your
> previous post seems to confirm that memory (the one where
> you say that it was a waste of time attending that meeting).

What I said (with emphasis pointing out the important part):

"Could you cite ONE case *** in this thread *** where I argued in favor of
including ANY requirement, documentation or otherwise, in the standard?"

Certainly, I have argued for requirements *** in other conversations, in
other places, at other times ***. In those discussions, I've expected
vendors to say "Wait a minute -- I don't think I understand what that means"
or "I don't know of any reasonable way to do what you're asking". Now I know
why they didn't object to them (at least in the meetings I attended) -- it
was preferable to just go along to make the users happy, and then not
consider themselves constrained by these "requirements" when implementing
the standard.

However, that's not related AT ALL to the original question I've raised,
which I think you've answered completely. Thank you for your time.