HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: net@cs.tu-berlin.de (Oliver Laumann)
Subject: Introduction to CLOS
Organization: Technical University of Berlin, Germany
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 11:39:23 GMT

I'm looking for a short overview or introduction to CLOS that is available
as a file on an FTP server or elsewhere in the net.

I know that the CLOS specification is part of CLtL-2, but considering
that I'm mainly interested in the concepts and not all the details (I'm
not programming in CL) and that I already own CLtL-1, purchasing CLtL-2
to just get an overview of CLOS seems a bit like a waste to me.  In
addition, ordering books from overseas in Germany usually takes months
and costs a small fortune.

Thanks,
--
Oliver Laumann    net@cs.tu-berlin.de  net@tub.UUCP  net@tub.BITNET
From: masmm@gdr.bath.ac.uk (M McGettrick)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Streams & sockets in lisp (query)
Date: 5 Jan 93 12:15:00 GMT
Organization: School of Mathematics, University of Bath, UK

I am trying to set up a lisp stream to pass data to a socket. The 
socket has been created using a separate C program. Any suggestions?
(I am using akcl on an IBM RS/6000).

Michael Mc Gettrick
(masmm@gdr.bath.ac.uk)
From: sjameson@atl.ge.com (Stephen M Jameson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: (SETF VALUES)
Date: 8 Jan 93 08:46:15
Organization: GE Advanced Technology Laboratories
Distribution: world
	<FY.93Jan6155542@hardwick.lucid.com>
Reply-To: sjameson@atl.ge.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: retaxes.atl.ge.com
In-reply-to: fy@lucid.com's message of 6 Jan 93 20:55:42 GMT

In article <FY.93Jan6155542@hardwick.lucid.com> fy@lucid.com (Frank Yellin) writes:
> 
> >   Is it possible to implement (SETF VALUES) in a Lisp which doesn't
> >   already do this?
> 

Pardon my ignorance here, but could you explain in what situations one would
wish to do this?
--
Steve Jameson                 General Electric Aerospace / Martin Marietta
sjameson@atl.ge.com           Advanced Technology Laboratories
                              Moorestown, New Jersey              
****************************************************************************
**  . . . but I do not love the sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow    **
**  for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory.  I love only that   **
**  which they defend . . .                                               **
**    -- Faramir, "The Two Towers"                                        **
****************************************************************************
From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: (SETF VALUES)
Date: 12 Jan 1993 16:00:27 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: telecaster.think.com

In article <SJAMESON.93Jan11145337@fergie.atl.ge.com> sjameson@atl.ge.com writes:
>Thank you, I understand now.  I don't have a Cltl2 or draft standard handy, but
>isn't there such a thing as multiple-value-setf which would serve exactly this
>purpose? 

No, there's only a MULTIPLE-VALUE-SETQ.

In hindsight, having separate SETQ and SETF was a bad design, IMHO.
-- 
Barry Margolin
System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com          {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
From: g_harrison@vger.nsu.edu (George C. Harrison, Norfolk State University)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Ada for Transputers!
Date: 4 Jan 93 18:02:32 EDT

   We have been exploring using transputers for some undergraduate classes. 
Part of our plan was to use Ada to program the transputers, which come at
very reasonable price; however, it appears that the Ada vendors that have
compilers for the transputers charge at a "per node" basis.  "Per Node" is fine
for a network of various users, but a transputer-based platform is a single
user system (in our case).  Is there a compiler for transputers (on a PC) that
is < $1000 (educational price)?  (I'm NOT a hardware expert.  The transputers
are 400's, I believe!)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| George C. Harrison            | PHONE : (804) 683-8654  | "Ada Spoken Here"|
| Professor of Computer Science | FAX   : (804) 683-9229  +------------------+
| Norfolk State University      | g_harrison@vger.nsu.edu |                  |
| 2401 Corprew Avenue           +-------------------------+                  |
| Norfolk VA 23504              | loop exit when RE_TIRED; end loop;         |
+-------------------------------+--------------------------------------------+
From: tmb@arolla.idiap.ch (Thomas M. Breuel)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: An Ada Program Does What It Says?
Date: 7 Jan 93 11:51:40
Organization: IDIAP (Institut Dalle Molle d'Intelligence Artificielle
	Perceptive)
	<1993Jan6.215758.10007@mksol.dseg.ti.com>
Reply-To: tmb@idiap.ch
NNTP-Posting-Host: arolla.idiap.ch
In-reply-to: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com's message of Wed, 6 Jan 1993 21:57:58 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.215758.10007@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:

   >Stuff like expression ordering, floating point representation, concurency,
   >etc, will always be indeterminate.

   >Not to trigger yet another C vs Ada flamefest, but this expression in
   >C is a classic example...

   >  r = (i++ == ++i)			[*]

   It is also, of course, quite well documented and understood.  You are
   correct in stating that just about every language is going to have
   syntactically correct constructs which produce undefined or
   implementation-defined results.  You are, however, incorrect in your
   assumption that Ada is the only language in which these things are
   well documented or understood.

First, there are different degrees of undefined behavior. For example,
you could mandate that any result of expression [*] is going to
correspond to one particular order of evaluation. In particular, that
would mean that the effects of writing [*] would be limited to the
variables mentioned in the statement. I believe in the case of
order-of-evaluation dependencies, this is what C does, but for other
"undefined behavior" (notably, pointer errors), the effects are not
limited.

Language specs can make an effort to mandate features that make the
detection of bugs due to "undefined behavior" easier, for example, by
mandating compiler options that excercise the different possibilities.
Some implementations do this, but I don't know of any language
standard that even recommends it.

But more importantly, these sources of "indeterminacy" ("undefined
behavior) can be eliminated completely.  You can define order of
evaluation, you can eliminate side effects, you can mandate a
particular floating point representation, and/or you can choose models
of parallel computation that do not give rise to "indeterminacy".

I believe neither Ada nor C go far enough in this regard, although I
suspect that Ada is somewhat better than C. The only languages that I
know of that go much further in eliminating undefined behavior have
parted with the Pascal heritage (the Pascal type system, imperative
updates, processes, ...).

					Thomas.
From: mab@wdl39.wdl.loral.com (Mark A Biggar)
Subject: Re: Semantics Question
Organization: Loral Western Development Labs
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 18:10:34 GMT

In article <9300612.21535@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> fraser@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fraser Wilson) writes:
>Hi.  I have a small question regarding exceptions, the answer to which
>I couldn't find in the ARM.  Basically, what happens if you raise a
>local exception, but don't handle it before the end of the block in which
>it is declared.  Like this:
>procedure p is
>  procedure q is
>    e : exception;
>  begin
>    raise e;
>  end q;
>begin
>  q;
>end p;
>Is the result defined somewhere, or not?  If there are handlers in
>subprograms that call p, and they handle any exception (ie, with an
>others clause), will they catch e?  Should the program abort as soon
>as it leaves e's scope?

This is well defined. See LRM 11.2.5.  Exceptions whose names are not visible
in the curent scope (this includes excetptions propagated out of scope) can be
handled using a "when others =>" exception handler.  Ada9x does the same thing
but also provides a method of getting a name string for the exception so that 
at least you can output a reasonable report before dying.

--
Mark Biggar
mab@wdl1.wdl.loral.com

Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: dtl8v@holmes.acc.Virginia.EDU (Heracleitus)
Subject: Re: Trying to fix Ada LRM for PC?
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 20:58:06 GMT


  Thanks for your reply.  I told Mr. Harrison how I fixed the problem
earlier this week.  It seems some of the ANSI chapters of the LRM in the
SIMTEL20 msdos/ada directory's ADALRM-1, -2, -3, and -4.ARC were in
error somehow, and when I replaced them with the files from SIMTEL20 ada
(not msdos/ada), the LRM.EXE program worked.  I will post this fix to the
usenet as well, although I suspect it will have little impact.

Doug Lamb
University of Virginia
dtl8v@Virginia.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: chris@cfmu.eurocontrol.be (Christophe Paquay)
Subject: Help with Meridian library
Originator: chris@lapwing
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 07:54:36 GMT
Organization: Eurocontrol - Central Flow Management Unit


        I have received a copy of the Meridian AdaVantage compiler for
   PC. With this compiler I've received three libraries that I would
   like to use. They are PACLIB, DOSENV and ADAUTIL. The problem is
   that I don't have the documentation and the specs of those libraries.

        I will appreciate, if somebody could send me information about 
   those libraries: quick description, spec package, ...

        The version I've got is the V2.0a.

                                     Thank you in advance.


     ------------------------------------------------------------______
      Christophe PAQUAY                 Eurocontrol - CFMU      /  /__/
      chris@cfmu.eurocontrol.be         Avenue des Arts 19H    /  /
      Fax: +32 2 729 32 16              B-1040    BRUXELLES   /  
                                        Belgium              /______
     --------------------------------------------------------
-- 
     ------------------------------------------------------------______
      Christophe PAQUAY                 Eurocontrol - CFMU      /  /__/
      chris@cfmu.eurocontrol.be         Avenue des Arts 19H    /  /
      Fax: +32 2 729 32 16              B-1040    BRUXELLES   /
From: leeu@nobeltech.se (Leif Euren)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Ada Readability, Book Reference
Date: 4 Jan 93 09:31:55 GMT
Organization: NobelTech AB




In article <9212281507.AA20416@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu> SAHARBAUGH@ROO.FIT.EDU writes:
>>I received one request for a pointer to Bryan & Mendal's
>>book so I may as well post it (same amount of keystrokes).
>>
>[stuff deleted]
>>
>>For many examples the book asks, "What will this
>>program print?"  For example 7.3.12 the answer is
>>"The answer to the question is indeterminate."
>>
>>So I ask "Is Ada readable if you can express an indeterminate
>>program using it?".

I think the answer should have been "The answer to the question is
compiler dependant.", and therefore: Yes, Ada is readable, although I
can express compiler dependant programs using it.

And in article <1992Dec30.035143.10291@seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) responded:
>The particular example depends on the evaluation order of the sides of
>the expression ... floating-point arithmetic has indeterminate results
>sometimes, so that (A*B)/C may yield a different result than A*(B/C).
>
>In the specific case, (6.0 * 1.0)/3.0 can yield a different result from 
>6.0 * (1.0 / 3.0) because 1.0/3.0 cannot be exactly represented.
>Therefore an expression like
>  6.0 * (1.0 / 3.0) = (6.0 * 1.0) / 3.0
>may not evaluate to True. Traditional floating-point gotcha.

Er... This is not a very good example. The constants used are of
universal_real type, and according to LRM 4.10(4) "... if a universal
expression is a static expression, then the evaluation must be exact."

But if I write

	B := 1.0;

	if 6.0 * (B / 3.0) = (6.0 * B) / 3.0 then

	else

	end if;

your arguments hold true.
 __  __ 
|  \   |  All opinions are my own, even if my employer claims otherwise!
|   \  |
|      |	Leif Euren			NobelTech Systems AB
|  \   |	System Manager Rational  	S-175 88 JARFALLA
|__ \__|	tel: +46-758-84072		Sweden
From: air4114a@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Steve Carr)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: INFO-ADA Digest V92 #458
Date: 11 Jan 93 12:34:14 GMT
Reply-To: air4114a@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Steve Carr)
Organization: Carderock Division, NSWC, Bethesda, MD

Folks,

1.  This is it!  The dumb questions of the week!

2.  What internet address should I send mail to requesting
inclusion on the INFO-ADA Digest distribution?

3.  Also, does anybody know if you have to resubscribe to the
Ada Clearing House Newsletters?  I had been receiving it for 
approximately 18 months, but I have not received one since
around June 1992.  My address has not not changed during this
time frame.

Very Respectfully,

Steve Carr
CDR, SC, USN
Naval Air Systems Command (AIR-4114A)
Washington, DC 20361-4110
703-692-5661, 703-692-5690, 703-746-0696, 703-746-0842
FAX 703-692-8587
Internet:  air4114a@oasys.dt.navy.mil
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: swillden@news.ccutah.edu (Shawn Willden)
Subject: Mixing logical operators
Organization: University of Utah Computer Center
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 18:02:16 GMT

My copy of the Ada standard (ANSI/MIL-STD-1815A) says in 4.5.4:

	...for a sequence of operators of the same precedence level,
	the operators are associated in textual order from left to
	right...

which indicates to me that 

      if i=5 and j=2 or k=3 then
      ...

should be interpreted as 

       if (i=5 and j=2) or k=3 then

but the VAX Ada compiler complains that logical operators cannot be
intermixed.

Is the VAX compiler wrong?  Am I reading the appropriate part of the 
standard?

Shawn.

--
Shawn Willden
swillden@icarus.weber.edu
From: jm59@prism.gatech.EDU (MILLS,JOHN M.)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: New Arcadia/IRUS AFLEX-AYACC release
Date: 7 Jan 93 16:24:51 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

In article <1993Jan7.075406.6948@sei.cmu.edu> firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes:
>In article <9301061627.aa17219@Paris.ics.uci.edu> irus-software-request@ics.uci.edu writes:
>
>> THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR
>> IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED
>> WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

[ deletions ]
 >
 >As of 1993 January 1, all products distribuited within the European
 >Community carry an implied warranty of merchantability, including
 >all computer related products, and this warranty cannot be disclaimed.
 >
 >In most countries of the EC, in fact, it is illegal to attempt to
 >disclaim this implied warranty; in the United Kingdom (at least),
 >it is a *criminal offence* to do so.

This sounds like a serious problem with regard to freely shared software.
The cited distribution is such a case:  ftp and try it out.  no charge,
and no way the offerror could afford to assume liability for misuse.

I think it _essential_ that a mechanism exist to allow such distribution.
Possibly this can be addressed by distributing such materials as 'examples
and illustrations only.'  Alternatively, EC distribution of archive files could 
be made technically illegal ... I don't know.  Sounds like
a good (? [8-P) moment for lawyerly prose.  I'm _not_ a lawyer, but I 
imagine there is a way to handle this.  How about copyright?

 >About time too, if you want my opinion.

I must disagree, for the reasons stated above.  Casual re-use of copied
materials should be at the risk of the user, since the distributor has
no control over the re-use.

Otherwise, the EC has just shot off their foot, leg, and most of
their lower torso, with regard to network access.  Probably will hurt
the rest of us, too, by the cascading effects of caution, and engender
_lots_ more lawyerly prose. <sigh>

"Send me your tired, your gcc, your huddled GNAT Adas, longing to be free..."

I'm glad you raised the issue.

Regards --jmm--

-- 
John M. Mills, SRE; Georgia Tech/GTRI/TSDL, Atlanta, GA 30332
uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!jm59
Internet: jm59@prism.gatech.edu
 ... Not so fast -- I'm still thinking.
From: bawa@java.ibp.fr (Rajesh BAWA)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: ADA-VHDL/PETRI
Date: 5 Jan 93 16:40:28 GMT
Organization: Laboratoire MASI, Paris, France

Hi,

I need some pointers to references on compiling  
ada and VHDL onto Petri-Nets and related works on tasking analyis.

Thank you for your help.

Greetings

Happy new year


-- 
......................................
Rajesh BAWA                        
CAO_VLSI/MASI UPMC PARIS VI            
e-mail: bawa@masi.ibp.fr             
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: eachus@goldfinger.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)
Subject: Re: Enum's start at 0?
Organization: The Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA.
	<1993Jan5.220007.26218@gvl.unisys.com>
	<1993Jan6.025929.18871@seas.gwu.edu>
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 19:40:57 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.025929.18871@seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes:

   In article <1993Jan5.220007.26218@gvl.unisys.com> schrey@prc.unisys.com writes:
   > >   All right... then why do string indices start at 1? :-)

   > Beats me. Anyone out there have an authoritative answer?

   Is there such a thing?  (I assume you don't want me to point to
Appendix C(17) and say because...)  There was a lot of debate on this
in 1981-1982, but as I remember it, it was more concerned with
replacing the subtypes NONNEGATIVE and NATURAL with the more standard
NATURAL and POSITIVE.  Once these were changed STRING changed to
match.

    I guess the real answer is that there was always an expectation
that for "normal" strings 'LENGTH = 'LAST and this requires that
STRINGs be based at one.



--

					Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
use  Standard_Disclaimer;
function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...
From: jm59@prism.gatech.EDU (MILLS,JOHN M.)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Ada for Transputers!
Date: 7 Jan 93 14:05:10 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

In article <C0GuD4.5u@world.std.com> tne@world.std.com (Thomas N Erickson) writes:
 >g_harrison@vger.nsu.edu (George C. Harrison, Norfolk State University) writes:
 >
 >>   We have been exploring using transputers for some undergraduate classes. 
 >>Part of our plan was to use Ada to program the transputers, which come at
 >>very reasonable price; however, it appears that the Ada vendors that have
 >>compilers for the transputers charge at a "per node" basis.
 >>  "Per Node" is fine
 >>for a network of various users, but a transputer-based platform is a single
 >>user system (in our case).  Is there a compiler for transputers 
 >>(on a PC) that

If this is typical, I'ld say it just about drops Ada out of the massively-
parallel computing market!  What a bonanza for the compiler vendor: sell 1,000 
CPU licenses for one box!  I'm _clearly_ in the wrong end of the business.

Could you get _one_ vectorizing cross-compiler, and host it in something other
than your transputer?  Most licenses I've seen are predicated on the number
of hosts, not the number of targets.  Which compiler vendor(s) were treating
each target node as a separate CPU for license purposes?

Regards --jmm--

-- 
John M. Mills, SRE; Georgia Tech/GTRI/TSDL, Atlanta, GA 30332
uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!jm59
Internet: jm59@prism.gatech.edu
 ... Not so fast -- I'm still thinking.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.compilers
From: davidm@questor.rational.com (David Moore)
Subject: Re: Compiler Construction in Ada
Reply-To: davidm@questor.rational.com (David Moore)
Organization: Rational
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 20:36:59 GMT
Keywords: courses, Ada

jipping@cs.hope.edu (Mike Jipping) writes:
>I'm looking at teaching [compiler] Construction in the Spring semester. ...
>In the past, we have ... used Pascal to write projects.

>Now the Pascal compiler is gone.  And I'm looking for the appropriate
>language in which to write the compiler for the project.

Ada would be a perfectly fine language to write a compiler in, but I would
say that the prime requirement is that the students already have whatever
language you choose when they come into the course. If you are going to
cover language processing and code generation to a real machine in a
single semester, they are going to be busy without having to learn a new
language as well. I remember the old days when the student's arrived in
Data Structures knowing only Fortran, and we had to teach them Pascal in
the Data Structures course. They finished the course knowing some Pascal
and little data structures.

If it is a choice between C and Ada and they have only got Pascal, go with
Ada - it's much more Pascal-like and a more pleasant language to program
in.  As an Ada text, I would recommend "Programming in Ada", by JGP
Barnes, Addison Wesley.

Regards, Dave Moore
-- 
Send compilers articles to compilers@iecc.cambridge.ma.us or
{ima | spdcc | world}!iecc!compilers.  Meta-mail to compilers-request.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: dtl8v@holmes.acc.Virginia.EDU (Heracleitus)
Subject: MC 88k family
Originator: dtl8v@holmes.acc.Virginia.EDU
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 03:46:47 GMT


  Given that the Motorola 88k family has been around as long as RISC,
why are the only validated Ada compilers for this family 2 in number?
According to AJPO's Jan. 1, 1993, list, only Verdix and Aitech had
validated compilers (and Meridian for a specific OS platform).  Other
vendors have RISC compilers on other platforms, but vendors like
Alsys, SD-Scion, Tartan, and Telesoft seem to be missing from this
arena.  How new is the Motorola MVME bare board for the 88k?

Doug Lamb
dtl8v@Virginia.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: emery@goldfinger.mitre.org (David Emery)
Subject: Re: An Ada Program Does What It Says?
Organization: The Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA.
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 16:52:18 GMT

The point of Mendal & Bryan (or Bryan & Mendal, depending on volume)
is to illustrate the dark corners of the language.  As has been
pointed out, *every* language has dark corners.  (Didn't Goedel prove
this...) 

One of the big differences between the Ada "culture" and other
"cultures" is the tendency we (Ada-ites) have to make things specific.
This was clear in the POSIX business, where the Ada binding goes out
of its way to completely specify all behaviors, including
implementation-defined or undefined behaviors.  The C binding is
(deliberately) silent in many places, with the general caveat of
"anything not specified is undefined."  

Therefore it is much easier to find the implementation-defined things
in either the Ada language or POSIX/Ada, because they are explicitly
so stated.  It's a heluva lot harder to find such things when they are
not explicitly specified, such as in POSIX/C.

				dave
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada