Re: What computer languages are standardised?



Oliver Wong wrote On 11/17/05 15:15,:
> "Ed Prochak" <ed.prochak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1132266243.000510.326230@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>>Scott Moore wrote:
>>
>>>Paul F. Dietz wrote On 11/17/05 05:31,:
>>>
>>>
>>>>IMO, a standard becomes especially useful when it's embodied in a set
>>>>of conformance tests. Such tests keep the implementors on the same
>>>>page, and also help debug the standard ('did you *really* mean to
>>>>require that behavior?')
>>>>
>>>>Paul
>>>
>>>Sure, thats a good one. Pascal had a huge suite of compliance tests
>>>appear at the same time as its standards (both of them). In fact,
>>>the Pascal compliance test may stand alone for a long time as
>>>being one of the best that has ever appeared. It checked not only
>>>what was in the standard, but checked for cases that should not
>>>compile as well, and many other quality tests.
>>
>>Doesn't ADA have a standard compliance test suite? I'd expect it to be
>>more extensive than one for PASCAL, but I do not know this to be a
>>fact.
>
>
> As does COBOL. The test is distributed by NIST, and it too contains both
> tests programs which should compile and produce a certain result as well as
> programs which are intentionally crafted so as to trigger specific compiler
> error messages.
>
> - Oliver
>
>

There was also a "standard model implementation" of Pascal produced, and the source
for that released. So the "standard model" could be used to compile the standard
tests, and each test corresponded to a dotted item number in the standard (like
5.3.5). The test, the model, and the standard left no chance for anyone to
misinterpret the standard. The standard model compiler compiled to an internal
code (like "bytecode") and interpreted that.

All for naught. The standard was almost completely ignored on the IBM-PC
implementations.

.

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