Re: Other Ada Standards (was Re: SIGada Conference)

From: Marin David Condic (nobody_at_noplace.com)
Date: 12/25/03

  • Next message: Russ: "Re: Other Ada Standards (was Re: SIGada Conference)" 
    Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2003 03:42:07 GMT

    The cost would *not* be near zero. Someone has to first work out all the
    legality rules and specify them in appropriate legalese for the ARM.
    Someone has to review and debate the new rules & test it against other
    rules to make sure it doesn't intercourse anything up. Someone has to go
    out and change every compiler that is currently being maintained, test
    it adequately to make sure it still works and then shepard it through
    validation. Someone has to write the validation suite - complete with
    cases that must be rejected by the compiler - not just ones that work.
    Someone has to argue that their compiler really did pass the suite with
    someone who has to argue that it didn't. Etc., etc., etc.

    There is (as I'm sure you are aware) a whole lot of effort that goes
    into *any* language feature - no matter how seemingly trivial. Some of
    it is by volunteers - but that doesn't stop it from *costing* something.
    Volunteers will only "volunteer" for so much before they tell you to go
    pile sand. All these resources need to be used wisely.

    That's why I think that given the cost of making some change like this,
    the money/time would better be spent on getting some feature that would
    make more of a difference to more people. Adding new library features
    doesn't involve compiler mods - just writing and validating the library.
    (Still a big job, but you didn't shake up a working compiler and have to
    prove it still works.) Hence I believe we'd get more useful stuff for
    the same input of effort.

    MDC

    Robert A Duff wrote:
    >
    > This change is hard to evaluate: the cost is near zero, and the benefit
    > is also near zero, so the cost/benefit ratio is difficult to estimate.
    > I've seen many such cases over the years, and I'd guess they usually
    > lose. 

    -- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm
Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r
     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."
         --  Al Bundy
======================================================================
  • Next message: Russ: "Re: Other Ada Standards (was Re: SIGada Conference)"

    Relevant Pages

    • Re: Another question about the intelligence of compiler
      ... G's very painful to compute in that it cost a lot of cputime. ... When I set A to zero, it should give Fregardless of what value G ... what should I do to make the compiler know there is a zero in front ...
      (comp.lang.fortran)
    • Re: Another question about the intelligence of compiler
      ... G's very painful to compute in that it cost a lot of cputime. ... When I set A to zero, it should give Fregardless of what value G ... what should I do to make the compiler know there is a zero in front ...
      (comp.lang.fortran)
    • Re: 8051 C Compiler
      ... various costs of piracy rather than a superior product. ... When I hear claims that an estimated 10% of sales are lost through illegal copying, I understand that it is a big dent in the developing company's income. ... The one developer that paid for the compiler now needs ... The cost of supported tools was about .04% (A real number ...
      (comp.arch.embedded)
    • RE: The Cost of Substitution
      ... The only ethical thing for Felsenstein to have done ... cost concept. ... substitution requires reproductive excess. ... limit on it is, in fact, "a slight reproductive excess" - not zero ...
      (sci.bio.evolution)
    • Re: D3/Linux compile question
      ... consider zero a valid array element while the Prime flavors do. ... 02 EQUATE ZERO TO ARRAY ... 07 CRT ARRAY ... Compiler catches line 6 and 13 as subscript out of range. ...
      (comp.databases.pick)