Re: Overriding discriminants perplexes GNAT 3.14p

[Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On 23 Sep 2002 11:33:32 -0400, Stephen Leake
<stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:

>Dmitry A.Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> writes:
>
>> Stephen Leake wrote:
>> 
>> > The question was not "is Ada good for web applications" but "do ACT
>> > customers use all of Ada".
>> 
>> If they do it, then why there are still bugs in the compiler? My point is 
>> that should GNAT be really widely used for multimedia, web, computer 
>> gaming, embedded, banking then it would have much less bugs.
>
>Give me some examples to support this thesis. I don't believe it!

I can't, because it is not enough used in these areas. But could you
agree that an application will not function properly if the compiler
has a bug. Or your argument is that if GNAT were used as wide as C++
then ACT would just ignore bug reports as MS does?

>> >> > So I have to believe that there is at least one ACT customers
>> >> > using each part of Ada. Which also helps defeat assumption 1).
>> >> 
>> >> I hope so. But you should admit that a wider use of GNAT would make it
>> >> better.
>> > 
>> > Well, that is precisely what I am not admitting :). Paying good people
>> > to write good code, and getting high-quality feedback from serious
>> > users, is an excellent model for producing a quality product. That
>> > does _not_ mean you have to have "a lot" of customers; just "enough"
>> > customers.
>> 
>> I cannot resist to remind you how DEC's boss claimed that nobody would need 
>> to have a personal computer at home.
>
>How is that relevant?

One should never separate customers into relevant and irrelevant. You
never know how it will turn in 10 years.

>> > MS Windows has way more users than GNAT; is it better? How about
>> > MS VC++?
>> 
>> MS ignores users because it is a monopoly which has too many of them.
>
>Yes. Which does not answer my question. Your thesis seems to be:
>
>If program A has more users than program B, then program A will have
>fewer bugs than program B.

Required, not implied!

Your argument is that for testing a program one does not need many
tests, it is enough to have all "good" tests. It is of course true.
The only technical problem is how to find that "good" tests. So what
makes you so sure, that paying GNAT users are "good" and only "good"
ones to detect and report all bugs? How one could prove that? Should
GNAT have no bugs a "bad" user (like me) be able to detect, then I
would agree with this argument. But it seems to be not so.

>I have quoted two examples (A = MS Windows, B= GNAT, A = MS VC++, B =
>GNAT), that contradict this thesis. Can you quote any examples that
>support it?

Linux is much better than it was before. Even in a pathalogical case
of MS VC++, if you compare VC++ 1.52 and VC++ 6.0 you will discover an
amazing progress (maybe because the starting point was so low. (:-))

>I suspect that DEC Ada 83 had fewer users in its heyday than GNAT has
>supported customers now (anybody have any real data on this)? If true,
>that also contradicts your thesis, since we agree that DEC Ada 83 had
>fewer bugs than GNAT Ada 95.

Come on, there are lots of other factors. Ada 83 is much smaller than
Ada 95, DEC targetted only one, very stable and highly integrated
platform, and so on and so forth.

---
Regards,
Dmitry Kazakov
www.dmitry-kazakov.de