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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,6bf9d4ba0cfd8cb6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Robert A Duff Subject: Re: Announce: OpenToken 2.0 released Date: 2000/02/17 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 587023104 Sender: bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff) References: <3890C62B.18309585@telepath.com> <876unj$jcs$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <87d7qck6pm.fsf@deneb.cygnus.argh.org> Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-02-17T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Hyman Rosen writes: > Apropos of this, I recall more than one thread here on c.l.a where > Robert Dewar says that one can legitimately make "ordinary platform" > assumptions when programming in Ada. That is, one does not read the > A.R.M. or treat the compiler as if they are the enemy and thwarting > you at every turn. True, but it's not always completely clear what assumptions are reasonable. For example, you might reasonably decide that your program will be portable only to 8-bit-byte-addressable machines, whereas standard libraries perhaps ought to be more portable than that. If the *hardware* insists that the smallest integer type is 32 bits, then is it unreasonable for the C implementation to read 32-bit quantities? Surely, if char and int are the same size (say, 32 bits), I should be allowed to write out the number -1, or 2**31-1, or 1_000_000! And surely if I can write it out, I should be able to read it back in. >... Conceivably a compiler for any language can be > implemented to stick to the letter of its Standard but still be as > useless as possible, but then you have the choice of not using it. - Bob