Re: GCC 4.0 Ada.Containers Cursor danger.

[Craig Carey <research@ijs.co.nz>]

On 7 Jul 2005 11:35:35 -0700, "Matthew Heaney" <mheaney@on2.com> wrote:

>
>
>Dmitriy Anisimkov wrote:
>>
>> <<The checking of the cursors could take considerable size and
>> performance. It is why i propose to have containers implementation
>> without cursors. Who need a cursors would pay by size and
>> performance.>>
>
>A couple of points.  The ARG solicited proposals for a container API
>over three years ago.

The ARG is composed of namable individuals.

Certainly not Mr Brukardt's ARG, since he anonymizes (so freely) the
names of men like Tucker Taft, when voting at ARG meetings.

The reward of anonymity is all part of the provided view. There was
a global resource shortage, e.g. of the mere names of American individuals
who are personally devoted to the success of (under the curiously
effective 50% idealism that Mr Brukardt gives us a view of).

Both Taft and Leroy created the total secrecy of AG discussions in about
October 2002. Suppose Brukardt personally desired to maintain the hold
over the ARG. He could create a rubbishy containers proposal using you
as a pawn, and the old IBM/360 seemed to get the correct answers, so
it would all adore secrecy.

Also I got an all-false e-mail from Tucker Taft dated "Tue, 05 Apr 2005
 22:15:23 -0400", that explained the secrecy of having all
discussions at the covert arg@ada-auth.org mailing list, was absent,
which is extremely untrue. I presented evidence here by ranking the
ARG members by their secretiveness.

Mr Brukardt is very more due attention than Mr Taft. In fact, Taft didn't
seem to be lying but more imagining that any story goes so long as it
can't be shot up or contradicted.

AI-302 is a pretext, a vessel named 'wrong purpose' that carries the
world to the shores of the Ada language.

Who solicited proposals?; or better still, what was the precise purpose
the Brukardtian anonymizing of the ARG.

I ask my readers to check for the unasked for and inescapable awarding of
anonymity (or less reliably, secrecy instead). It suggests an abuse of
power. Ada is for powerful people.

...

>The other issue is that there is no cost in size or performance to have
>cursors.  Implementations don't have to do anything special to
>implement cursors.  Even without cursors, it's doubtful implementations
>would change at all.
>
>The only cost in size or performance is the overhead necessary to
>detect dangling cursor references (and not, as you suggest above, to
>merely provide cursors).

Also check for strange views.
Maybe Matt render more services of value to the hierarchy (oh, that
view was missing: a little mistake but beginners would learn...)


Craig Carey
The old ranking of names by secretiveness: http://www.ijs.co.nz/ada_95.htm