HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: lam@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Josh Lam)
Subject: Re: Tired of the Ada vs. (Pick your language) discussion
Organization: Honeywell Air Transport Systems Division
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 92 21:32:58 GMT


In article <BzCs15.B28@gdls.CSCTMD.COM> tarcea@gdls.CSCTMD.COM (Glenn Tarcea) writes:


Glenn>   Can we please stay on the topic of discussing Ada, and Ada in
Glenn> real-world systems. All languages have their strengths and weaknesses
Glenn> and I am tired of hearing religous comparisons of why either Ada is
Glenn> better than language X or language X is better than Ada. Maybe a news
Glenn> group called comp.lang.religion should be started for these stupid
Glenn> discussions. I program in both 'C' and Ada and I can appreciate the
Glenn> strengths (and weaknesses) of each of the languages, I don't need
Glenn> somebody to give me their supposedly unbiased opinion on language
Glenn> greatness.

I agree whole-heartly!

Let's make more constructive use of this newsgroup.  Also, its nice to see
champions of various languages eg Grady Booch and Bjarne Stroustrup working
and holding conferences together. Let's learn from them and be gracious.

-- 
Josh Lam
Honeywell Inc
lam@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com
From: alex@cs.umd.edu (Alex Blakemore)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Lets split comp.lang.ada into multiple groups to confine flames
Date: 16 Dec 92 19:46:08 GMT
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742

In article <BzCs15.B28@gdls.CSCTMD.COM> tarcea@gdls.CSCTMD.COM (Glenn Tarcea) writes:
>   Can we please stay on the topic of discussing Ada, and Ada in
> real-world systems. All languages have their strengths and weaknesses
> and I am tired of hearing religous comparisons of why either Ada is
> better than language X or language X is better than Ada. Maybe a news
> group called comp.lang.religion should be started for these stupid discussions. 

good posting, but how about a real division-

make comp.lang.ada obsolete and create a small set of groups instead.

  some suggestions

    comp.lang.advocacy   - for the flame wars
    comp.lang.programmer - for discussions of design/development Ada language issues
                           (or comp.lang.technical or better name?)
    comp.lang.announce   - moderated, low volume important announcements
                           of meetings, products, standards, new mandates :) etc
    comp.lang.misc       - catch all

this works well in the NeXT groups which I've been reading lately
they have huge flame fests between Objective-C and C++ but confine
them to the advocacy group.

anyone interested or familiar with how to do this?

P.S. For people worried about getting overrun by C++, stop worrying
and do something to contribute to Ada's success instead of flaming.
Does anyone else program in Ada on a NeXT using a DVORAK keyboard?
Talk about swimming against the tide.

-- 
---------------------------------------------------
Alex Blakemore alex@cs.umd.edu   NeXT mail accepted
From: frank@evax2.engr.arizona.edu (Frank Manning)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Gunslingers
Date: 14 Dec 92 20:57:04 GMT
Reply-To: frank@evax2.engr.arizona.edu
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona, College of Engineering and Mines, Tucson

In article <1992Dec14.173555.19737@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com
(fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:

>Of course, if you're interested in facts or reason, you'll have to look
>elsewhere, but as for Frank Manning, he doesn't need any of those things. 
>He has a Mandate.

For the record, I don't have a Mandate. I receive no funding from DOD.
Not only that, but Ada tends to be frowned upon around here.

-- Frank Manning                                   -- Std disclaimer
-- College of Engineering and Mines                --
-- Civil Engineering 100, University of Arizona    --
-- Tucson, AZ  85721  frank@evax2.engr.arizona.edu --
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)
Subject: Re: Ada on massively parallel supercomputer
Organization: The World
	<SRCTRAN.92Dec15110419@world.std.com> <BzF9oC.GuA@world.std.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 04:04:01 GMT

    Besides Alsys' Ada transputer stuff, Sky Computer (Chelmsford, MA) has
array processor add-in boards based on the Intel i860 for which they have
(or will be releasing) Ada compilers.

Greg Aharonian
-- 
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: eachus@oddjob.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)
Subject: Re: Navy Counters Ada Mandate?
Organization: The Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA.
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 23:07:08 GMT


In article <SRCTRAN.92Dec11150428@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) writes:

   Talk about a nice big loophole for circumventing the Ada mandate,
   given the uncertainty about how to define when something is COTS
   (i.e. how many copies do I have to sell 1 - 10 - 100?).  For
   example, for a big telecommunications project for the Navy, could
   ATT make a bid based on the millions and millions of lines of C/C++
   code it uses in its commercial networks?

   Sure it could.  If, for example, they bid an ESS4 switch with the
software as an NDI (non-development item) and software support
guarenteed for some number of years at a fixed price per year.  The
number of copies of the product that ATT sells it part of the overall
risk assesment.

   Now if ATT says, "We are going to use our existing software but
modify it to meet your requirements.  The code development will cost
$X million dollars, and take N months."  Now the Ada mandate kicks
in...

--

					Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
use  Standard_Disclaimer;
function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...
From: zetocha@uservx.plk.af.mil
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Ada on massively parallel supercomputer
Date: 14 Dec 92 09:53:48 GMT
Article-I.D.: uservx.1992Dec14.095348.36617
Organization: Phillips Laboratory - Kirtland AFB


   I am in the process of developing parallelized neural network 
algorithms using Ada.  I would like to do some testing on a Massively
Parallel Supercomputer, but I'm having trouble locating an MP computer
which has a parallel Ada compiler.   Does anyone know where I might  find
such a beast to buy time off of?

Paul Zetocha
Phillips Lab
PL/VTES
Kirtland AFB, NM, 87117
zetocha@plk.af.mil
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)
Subject: Re: Gunslingers
Organization: The World
Distribution: world,local
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 04:07:57 GMT

Ha!! I love it.  Unfortunately I was watching the same movie, and say a
different story.

First, the general store didn't stock the Winchester Ada.  You had to go
to the taxpayer funded PX at the local fort to find any of the Winchesters.
It seems no one was selling the Winchesters outside of the PXes.

Second, Chester spits in the bucket about the Winchester only when it
involves tax dollars.  After all, Chester put his own money into selling
Winchester parts when the gun first came into town, only to loose his
horse and buggy.

Third, the cavalry standardized on the Winchester just in time for
General Custer to use it at his last battle with the free market Indians.
Custer probably had STARS in his eyes going into battle, and RAPIDly lost.

Fourth, I noticed you conveniently left out Mr. Phipps first name, i.e.,
Mosemann Phipps.  He'll say anything to increase his business. And his
toe counting statistics are probably as inaccurate and unmeaningful as the
Mosemann statistics are.

Fifth, you also forget to mention that the only way Joe could afford to
give his son enough money to buy an expensive Winchester is that Joe is
a government contractor, an issue that Jess Feldman also talks about.

Finally, after the soldier threw Chester into the clock, it cost more tax
dollars to pay for fixing the clock.  Of course no one found out who the
soldier was, they never stick around long enough to take responsibility
for the cost of fixing clocks.  Last I heard, the soldier (I think he was
a sergeant named York) got a job at the Supplies, Arms, Indians and Cowboys
stores that always seem to set up shops outside the forts.

Great flame none the less.

Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimization

-- 
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: dnsurber@lescsse.jsc.nasa.gov (Douglas N. Surber)
Subject: Re: Novice Question on Record Representation
Organization: Lockheed Engineering and Sciences
Date: 17 Dec 92 22:32:25 GMT

In <1992Dec17.182403.6353@telesoft.com> garym@telesoft.com (Gary Morris @pulsar) writes:

>Unfortunately, you can't rely on assertion like this.  The constant a1 is
>not used anywhere and an optimizing compiler could remove a1 and the
>expression used for its initial value (TSize = T'Size).  So the range check
>never occurs and no exception or compile time warning is generated.  This
>optimization is allowed by 11.6(7), when the only effect of a predefined
>operation is to raise an exception. 

But a1 could be used in the package body, therefore it can't be optimized
out during compilation of the package spec.  As I recall there is no
requirement to issue a compile time warning in cases like this, but I
am not aware of any compiler that doesn't.  Does anyone else know of any?
I use the subtype Assertion a lot in my code and it occasionally catches
things, but I guess I really shouldn't rely on it.


--
Douglas Surber             "Would you rather debug at
Lockheed                    compile time or run time?"
Houston, TX                      --Michael B. Feldman
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: geb@amber.Rational.COM (Gary Barnes)
Subject: Draft pre-standard ASIS 1.0A is available for anonymous FTP
Keywords: Ada Semantic Interface Specification, portable, standard
Organization: Rational
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 21:11:35 GMT


The Ada Semantic Interface Specification is a layered
vendor-independent open architecture.  ASIS queries and services
provide a consistent interface to information within an Ada Program
Library.  Clients of ASIS are shielded and free from the
implementation details of each Ada vendor's proprietary library and
intermediate representation.

The latest working draft for ASIS is ASIS 1.0A, dated December 1992.
The ASIS Working Group (ASISWG), under sponsorship of the AJPO,
intends to evolve this working draft into an ISO standard
complementing the Ada 9X standard.  The current ASIS working draft is
based on Ada 83.  Your comments are welcome, if you want to see
replies to your comments, please join the email discussion group
first.

There is an electronic mail discussion forum for the ASISWG:

        asis@stars.reston.paramax.com

This forum is also where announcements of ASISWG meetings will appear.
To have your email address added to this forum, send email to

        asis-request@stars.reston.paramax.com

Include your preferred email address, name, telephone number, and
surface mail address.

ASIS 1.0A is avaiable for anonymous FTP from ajpo.sei.cmu.edu.  It is
available in the public/asis directory as asis_1.0A.

If you have Internet FTP access, run your FTP program, your log might
look something like this:

        $ ftp ajpo.sei.cmu.edu
        Name (ajpo.sei.cmu.edu:you): anonymous
        331 Guest login ok, send ident as password.
        Password:you@your-company.com
        ftp> cd public/asis
        ftp> get asis_1.0A
        200 PORT command successful.
        150 Opening data connection for asis_1.0A (130.213.1.2,2614) (611652
        bytes).
        ....
        ftp> bye

If you do not have Internet FTP access, send this mail message
message, with no Subject: line, to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com:

        reply you@your-company.com
        connect ajpo.sei.cmu.edu
        binary
        compress
        uuencode
        chdir public/asis
        get asis_1.0A
        quit

ASIS 1.0A will arrive in your email.  It will arrive in pieces.
Concatenate the pieces (they are numbered), run them through uudecode,
then uncompress them.  If you don't have compress, leave out the
compress line in the message.  If you don't have uudecode, leave out
the uuencode line in the message.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: pn@telelogic.se (Piotr Nestorow - TeleLOGIC Malmoe AB)
Subject: ADA to C translator wanted
Organization: Telelogic Malmoe AB, Sweden
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 16:54:55 GMT

Does anybody know of an ADA to C translator - Public Domain or Commercial?
Please reply by mail.

Thanks!

Piotr Nestorow
TeleLOGIC Malmo AB, SWEDEN
Email: Piotr.Nestorow@telelogic.se
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)
Subject: Re: Open Systems closed to Ada?
Organization: George Washington University
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 04:45:29 GMT

In article <92346.46129.LJ10891@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM> LJ10891@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM writes:
>
>   I disagree with the Ada mandate; however, when all is said and done, the DoD
>is just one software customer.  I doubt there's a large market for Macintosh
>software at IBM.  It hasn't kept Mac programmers from peddling their wares
>elsewhere.  If the DoD chooses to freeze THEIR technology for eleven
>years at a pop, IT'S THEIR CHOICE (and, IMHO, one whose wisdom has yet to be
>established).

I agree entirely with your statement about the Mac. 

The wisdom of the mandate has yet to be established; on the other hand,
nobody has yet established its foolishness either. I have no problem
with DoD mandating Ada. My problem arise when someone in Congress figured
it was a good idea to write it into the law. There's a difference. I
guess it's just another example of us Americans trying to fix with laws
what we've lost the ability to fix with common sense.

Mike
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman
co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee

Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
School of Engineering and Applied Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
(202) 994-5253 (voice)
(202) 994-5296 (fax)
mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)

"Americans want the fruits of patience -- and they want them now."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: rlk@VisiCom.COM (Bob Kitzberger)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: FORTRAN bug(was Re: C++ vs. Ada -- Is Ada loosing?)
Date: 12 Dec 92 06:04:13 GMT

obry@flash.bellcore.com (Pascal Obry) writes:


>I like Ada because you can *read* it. And this seem to be one of the most
>important thing about a language. With goods choices for the identifier, you
>can read an Ada progam like a text, you don't have to translate what you read.

It is rare that I feel that Ada code is too verbose.  One of the instances
that comes to mind is the syntax for representation specifications, which
basically require duplicating the type definition just to provide the repspec.
For hundreds of lines of type specifications (e.g. a protocol definition)
the doubling of line count hinders maintenance (i.e. each change to a
data structure requires at least two changes: one in the type definition,
and one in the rep spec.)  OH well.

What is much, much more frustrating are the verbose, useless commenting
standards that one often finds on DoD projects.    What was once a
simple subprogram specification, with descriptive identifer names,
too often becomes a morass of useless information, often several
screens full of junk that some DoD or corporate coding standard requires.
Grrrrr.

	.Bob.
----------------
Bob Kitzberger          VisiCom Laboratories, Inc.
rlk@visicom.com         10052 Mesa Ridge Court, San Diego CA 92121 USA
                        +1 619 457 2111    FAX +1 619 457 0888
From: tarcea@gdls.CSCTMD.COM (Glenn Tarcea)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Tired of the Ada vs. (Pick your language) discussion
Date: 16 Dec 92 12:58:14 GMT
Organization: Computer Sciences Corp. @ General Dynamics


  Can we please stay on the topic of discussing Ada, and Ada in
real-world systems. All languages have their strengths and weaknesses
and I am tired of hearing religous comparisons of why either Ada is
better than language X or language X is better than Ada. Maybe a news
group called comp.lang.religion should be started for these stupid
discussions. I program in both 'C' and Ada and I can appreciate the
strengths (and weaknesses) of each of the languages, I don't need
somebody to give me their supposedly unbiased opinion on language
greatness.


  -- glenn

-- 
================================================================================
              __   __   ___  |   Glenn Tarcea -| Software Tools |-
         //// _  __  ___     |   General Dynamics
        ///  __    ___    __ |   
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: C++ vs. Ada -- Is Ada loosing?
Date: 13 Dec 92 07:17:14 GMT
Organization: HTE

In article <11330@prijat.cs.uofs.edu>, beidler@guinness.cs.uofs.edu (Jack Beidler) writes:

^I've enjoyed reading all the postings on why Ada is loosing to C++.
^Practically all of the posting are missing the "real" reason.  It has
^to do with economic considerations (read my company wants to make
^more money).  Think of it this way:  I'm a governement software
^contractor.  If I build a perfect, or at least a close to perfect 
^system, I make all my money (read profit) by the time I deliver 
^the system.  However, if I build a buggy system with unreadable 
^source code, I make money (again read profit) over the entire life 
^of the software.  Since I can build buggier unreadable software in 
^C and C++, naturally I want to use C and C++ so I can make more 
^money over a longer period of time.

The more I think about it, Ada (safe, sane....) reminds me of the Volvo.
You see all those advertisements for Volvos tauting safety features, and
they never mention the best safety feature, i.e. the fact that they usually
don't run and you can only hurt yourself so badly sitting under a tree
in a car.  

Likewise with Ada.  If you figure all the things which it simply can't do,
as was so heavily documented in the 700 or so tales of grief from the AdaWoe
BBS, that really doesn't leave much.  Basically, all most people do when forced
to use Ada in projects is to write some stupid menu system in Ada to call C
or C++ routines and hope the Ada part doesn't screw the whole thing up
too badly.  That SHOULD be safe...



-- 
Ted Holden
HTE

Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)
Subject: Desert Storm-related Ada Story - anyone have it?
Organization: George Washington University
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 16:26:28 GMT

I seem to recall a posting to this group just after Desert Storm, describing
an Ada system that was reconfigured and fielded very rapidly. I thought
I had saved a copy in my archive but can't find it. Does anyone happen to
have a copy out there? Can you e-mail it, please. Time is of the essence.

Thanks!

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman
co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee

Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
School of Engineering and Applied Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
(202) 994-5253 (voice)
(202) 994-5296 (fax)
mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)

"Americans want the fruits of patience -- and they want them now."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: dirk@cs.kuleuven.ac.be (Dirk Craeynest)
Subject: Re: C++ vs. Ada (Really: Life, the Universe, and Everything)
Summary: exact quote follows
Organization: Dept. Computerwetenschappen K.U.Leuven
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 08:24:06 GMT

In article <16269@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard
A. O'Keefe) writes:

>I can never quite remember the line in "Life, the Universe, and
>Everything."
>"Don't worry, Arthur Dent ............... be very very frightened."

FYI, the exact quote from the book "Life, the Universe, and Everything"
by Douglas Adams is:

-------
  The sign changed itself again.  It said:

      Do Not be Alarmed.

  After a pause, it added:

      Be Very Very Frightened, Arthur Dent.

  Once again it flicked off. Once again it left him in darkness.
-------

Dirk Craeynest                    | domain: dirk@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
Ada-Belgium Newsletter editor     | uucp:   dirk@kulcs.uucp
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven    |         ...!mcsun!ub4b!kulcs!dirk
Department of Computer Science    | phone:  ++32(0)16-201015 x3555
Celestijnenlaan 200 A             | fax:    ++32(0)16-205308
B-3001 Leuven (Heverlee), Belgium | telex: 23674 kuleuv b
From: IVANTSE@TOROLAB6.VNET.IBM.COM
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 15:47:19 EST
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Ada compiler for VM/CMS

This message is to clarify a prior misleading message r.w.t. the
IBM Ada/370 compiler products. IBM has been marketing and continues
to market Ada/370 compiler products including the VM compiler.

In fact, IBM announced a new release of the Ada/370 licensed programs
in June 92. The new release, Ada/370 Release 3, provided significant
productivity enhancements including deferred instantiations, shared
generics, passive tasking and additional debugging capability to our
users. We also enabled 31-bit addressing support in October 92 for
VM/XA and VM/ESA (our MVS product has always had this capability).
The MVS product has been enhanced by adding an optional feature to
interface to CICS in addition to the existing module processor for DB2.
Both MVS and VM compilers have been validated at the current ACVC
Level 1.11 test suite.

We would hope that any posting of similar nature could be verified with
the vendor(s) directly prior to spreading.

Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: emagnuso@halcyon.com (Erik Magnuson)
Subject: Re: Language pitfalls (was Re: FORTRAN bug)
Summary: One example of function w/o return
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 20:27:35 GMT

In article <256@visicom.com> rlk@VisiCom.COM (Bob Kitzberger) writes:
>Robert, I can't think of a reason to have a function that does nothing
>but raise an exception... can you provide an example?  (I'm not
>questioning the need for it -- just curious)

Howabout when you have a common interface, but cannot (or choose not
to) implement the function for a specific implementation.

	function Foo return Foo_Type is
	begin
	   raise Not_Supported;
	end Foo;

Currently you have to write:

	function Foo return Foo_Type is
	   Dummy : Foo_Type;  -- should this be initialized?
	begin
	   raise Not_Supported;
	   return Dummy;
	end Foo;

>
>	.Bob.
>----------------
>Bob Kitzberger          VisiCom Laboratories, Inc.
>rlk@visicom.com         10052 Mesa Ridge Court, San Diego CA 92121 USA
>                        +1 619 457 2111    FAX +1 619 457 0888
-- 
Erik

Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)
Subject: Re: Navy Counters Ada Mandate?
Organization: The World
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 20:04:28 GMT

>It should be noted that should Commerical-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Software
>satisfy the DoD or DoN requirements, then procurement of the COTS software
>is generally more cost effective than developing the application regardless
>of language used.  The language used in COTS software procurements is
>"don't care" and generally not known.  In order to qualify, the COTS software
>must not be modified or maintained by the DoN.

Talk about a nice big loophole for circumventing the Ada mandate, given the
uncertainty about how to define when something is COTS (i.e. how many copies
do I have to sell 1 - 10 - 100?).  For example, for a big telecommunications
project for the Navy, could ATT make a bid based on the millions and millions
of lines of C/C++ code it uses in its commercial networks?

Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimization
-- 
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada