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From: Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com>
Subject: Re: Constraint checking of actuals passed to Attributes
Date: 2000/05/09
Message-ID: <wcc4s8721fj.fsf@world.std.com>#1/1
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Sender: bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff)
References: <391250A8.99D1585C@hotmail.com> <39171B69.2F983487@averstar.com>
 <8f93lm$1es$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 2000-05-09T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes:

> OK, Bob and Tuck will argue that this does not meet the
> "intent" of the authors in writing the above statement.

Yes.

> Arguments from intent are always suspect, 

True.  My rule of thumb is that you shouldn't argue from intent unless
you've found something wrong with the RM (an inconsistency, an onerous
implementation burden, a requirement that makes the language useless,
etc).  Having found such a bug, I think it makes sense to talk about
what the original authors must have meant, in some informal sense.
Sometimes, they can even *remember* what they meant.  ;-)

>...but never more
> so than when the intent is vague and unclear.

Well, it's clear to me.  ;-)

Apparently, it's not clear to you, but I'm not sure what to do about
that at this point.

I agree with you that the RM words do not precisely capture the intent.

- Bob