HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: englehar@src.honeywell.com (Matt Englehart)
Subject: reading an unformatted fortran file
To: src.ada, comp.lang.ada
Posted-Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 21: 06:04 CDT
Organization: Honeywell Systems & Research Center
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 02:06:04 GMT
Received-Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 21: 05:43 CDT

I have a fortran file that was written out using "unformatted" format,thus
are stored in a binary representation.  The data is stored in the file in a
deterministic way, but consists of three types: integer, short float (fortran
real*4), and float (fortran real*8).  My question is, how do I read the
values of this file?  All I know is that I can instantiate SEQUENTIAL_IO
for a particular data type, but what if the items stored in the file have
mixed representations?

Thanks, Matt

Matthew J. Englehart                      Voice: (612)-951-7635
Honeywell Systems and Research Center     FAX:   (612)-951-7438
3660 Technology Dr.   MS:MN65-2500        Inet: englehar@src.honeywell.com
Minneapolis, MN 55418


Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: smccoy@dw3g.ess.harris.com (Scott McCoy)
Subject: Re: Assy/Ada SLOC ratio;What's an Ada SLOC?
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 12:21:44 GMT
Organization: Harris Corporation Information Systems Division

In article <1992Oct14.121432.10919@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu>, dlc@ddsdx2.jhuapl.edu (Dave Collard x7468) writes:

[...code example deleted...]

|> 
|> IMHO, any method that depends on semicolons for counting
|> lines of code is pretty useless.
|> 

You've hit on a key point here -- just what do want your 'SLOC'
metric to measure?  Size?  Complexity?  Depending upon your
answer, different SLOC methods may be appropriate.

In the years I've been working in the Ada industry, I've never
seen a consensus for an Ada SLOC computational method.

In the past, I've used 'every non-blank, non-comment line is
a LOC'.  Note that this method is highly depend upon programming
and formating style.  I know that.  But it's a simple way to
count, and if you're consistent, then the data can be meaningful.

Just my $0.02.
-- 
Scott McCoy	Harris ISD	Opinions expressed are my own.
Staff Eng - SW	Internet: 	smccoy@dw3g.ess.harris.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)
Subject: Re: NYU Ada ED
Organization: George Washington University
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1992 03:45:16 GMT

In article <1992Oct16.182045.18254@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> steele@dimsum.jpl.nasa.gov (Rob Steele) writes:
>I attempted to download the NYU adaed compiler and was unable to
>extract the files from the tar'ed versions I downloaded. I got a
>checksum error. Does anybody have an idea on how I should be
>downloading these files. 
>
Could be you forgot to set ftp to "binary" before transferring the file.
Also, the tar-red file is compressed, so you need to uncompress before
un-tar-ring.

Cheers -

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 wants the fruits of patience -- and they want them now."
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: dnsurber@lescsse.jsc.nasa.gov (Douglas N. Surber)
Subject: Re: Generic Instantiation as Subprogram Body? (Clarification)
Organization: Lockheed Engineering and Sciences
Date: 14 Oct 92 20:30:03 GMT

In <11225@platypus.uofs.uofs.edu> beidler@guinness.cs.uofs.edu (Jack Beidler) writes:

>Since "<=" is equivalent to "not >" and ">=" is equivalent to "not <"

  [  lots of stuff about how to implement relational operators (and
     some bad manners) deleted   ]

>  function "<" (l, r : U) return boolean is

>     begin
>        . . .

>     end "<":


First of all this is a toy example of a general problem.  The purpose of 
the posting was not to find out how to implement the relation operators,
but rather to explore the issues relating to using generic
instantiations as the implementations of subroutines declared in a
package spec.  I'm sorry my original posting was not sufficiently clear
in that aspect, so I'll clarify.

There does not appear to be any clean way to use an instance of a
generic as the implementation of a subroutine declared in a package spec
without putting the instantiation in the spec itself.  If for some
reason I wanted to implement a subroutine in that fashion, I wouldn't
want that to be part of the spec.  It is an implementation detail and
doesn't belong in the spec.  So, three questions:

1) Is there anyway to do this other than the kludges I listed in my
   original posting?

2) If not, what was the rationale behind this restriction?

3) Has this been fixed in Ada 9X?

Once again, I know lots of ways to implement relations, I am trying to
understand a glitch in the language definition that improperly couples
the specification of a package with its implementation.

Douglas Surber
Lockheed
Houston, TX
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)
Subject: Re: Can I overload ": ="?
Organization: George Washington University
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 04:08:58 GMT

In article <1992Oct12.194719.27071@fcom.cc.utah.edu> val@news.ccutah.edu (Val Kartchner) writes:
>(I happen to have run into a situation where this would be useful.  I've
>found a way around it, but I'd like to know if I can do it this way?)
>
>I would like to define what happens when I assign a value of one type (say
>complex) to a variable of another type (say real).  Can I change what is
>meant in Ada by the operation ":=" like I can do with the other operators,
>or am I stuck with assignment of a type to a variable of that type?
>
Nope, sorry. Ada does not allow - under any circumstances - you to change
the meaning of :=.

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 wants the fruits of patience -- and they want them now."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: mjl-b@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Ada and real-time
Date: 15 Oct 92 10:17:48 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England

In article <1992Oct14.143733.842@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com> walls@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Gerald Walls) writes:
>determinism is very important.  we've ditched Ada's nondeterministic
>task and have instead implemented our own, deterministic tasking.

This is misleading. If all your tasks have distinct priorities, then the
scheduling of those tasks is entirely deterministic.

>Ada's tasking is not suitable for embedded real-time systems.

I disagree.

Mat

| Mathew Lodge                      | "A conversation with you, Baldrick,     |
| mjl-b@minster.york.ac.uk          |  and somehow death loses its sting..."  |
| Langwith College, Uni of York, UK |  -- Blackadder II                       |
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: dlc@ddsdx2.jhuapl.edu (Dave Collard x7468)
Subject: Re: Problem with inefficiency and records with variant parts
Organization: Johns Hopkins University
Distribution: comp
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 92 16:15:39 GMT

In <SIDOU.92Oct7130337@litsun.epfl.ch> sidou@litsun.epfl.ch (Dominique Sidou) writes:


>First, I want to reformulate the problem, I think it
>was not enough precise in my first post:

>Suppose:

>PACKAGE qwe IS 

>  subtype t1 is Integer;
>  type t2 is array(1..1000) of Integer;
>  type t3 is array (1..1000) of Boolean;

>  subtype st is integer range 1..3;

>  type t (s : st := 1) is record
>    case s is
>      when 1 => c1 : t1;
>      when 2 => c2 : t2;
>      when 3 => c3 : t3;
>    end case;
>  end record;

>  procedure fillt1(v1 : in out t1);
>  procedure fillt2(v2 : in out t2);
>  procedure fillt3(v3 : in out t3);
>  procedure fillt(v : in out t; s : in st);

>END qwe;

>package body qwe is

>  procedure fillt1(v1 : in out t1) is
>  begin
>    v1 := 1;
>  end fiilt1;

>  procedure fillt2(v2 : in out t2) is
>  begin
>    for i in v2'range loop
>      v2(i) := 2;
>    end loop;
>  end fillt2

>  procedure fillt3(v3 : in out t3) is
>  begin
>    for i in v2'range loop
>      v3(i) := true;
>    end loop;
>  end fillt3;

>  procedure fillt(v : in out t; s : in st) is
>  begin
>      -- ?? How can I Do ??
>      -- to cast v to v(s) and then call
>      -- the corresponding filling procedure
>      -- without any copy of a structure of
>      -- type t2 or t3.
>    case s is
>      when 1 =>
>	v := (s => 1, c1 => 0);
>        fillt1(v.c1);
>      when 2 =>
>        v := (s => 2, c2 => (others => 0)); -- useless copy to avoid !!
>        fillt1(v.c2);
>      when 3 =>
>	v := (s => 3, c3 => (others => false)); -- useless copy to avoid !!
>        fillt1(v.c3);
>    end case;
>  end fillt;
--This does not do a copy on my machine:

  procedure fillt(v : out t; s : in st) is
    ret : t(s);
  begin
    case s is
      when 1 =>
        fillt1(ret.c1);
      when 2 =>
        fillt2(ret.c2);
      when 3 =>
        fillt3(ret.c3);
    end case;
    v := ret;
  end fillt;

>end qwe;

>I think now the problem is well formulated.

>Precisions:
>1: I know that if my components were
>references it would be easy. But i have to deal
>with static structures.

>2: Working with Verdix Ada 6.0.3 on Sun4/SunOs 4.1.1

>Thanks in advance for any ideas,

>/DS.

>Sidou Dominique, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne,
>DI-LIT-INN138, Ecublens, CH-1015 Lausanne, Suisse
>tel: 693.26.48. e-mail: sidou@litsun.epfl.ch
>--

>Sidou Dominique, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne,
>DI-LIT-INN138, Ecublens, CH-1015 Lausanne, Suisse
>tel: 693.26.48. e-mail: sidou@litsun.epfl.ch

--Thor
dlc@ddsdx2.jhuapl.edu
collard@capsrv.jhuapl.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: mishra@controls.ccd.harris.com (Sanjoy Mishra)
Subject: Subscribe
Originator: mishra@sp1
Organization: Harris Controls
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 12:20:41 GMT


Please subscribe me for this newsgroup

mishra@ccd.harris.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: gjp@sei.cmu.edu (George Pandelios)
Subject: 2nd Call for Participation:  Software Risk
Keywords: Software Technical Risk
Organization: The Software Engineering Institute
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 18:43:17 GMT




			       CALL FOR PARTICIPATION		

				2nd SEI Conference on
			            Software Risk

			Considerations for Managers & Practitioners


The Second SEI Conference on Issues in Software Risk will be held in
Pittsburgh in March 2-4 of 1993.  The conference brings together software
managers, practitioners, and educators to discuss software technical risk.  
The conference will include plenary sessions, formal invited and contributed
presentations, panel discussions, and informal birds-of-a-feather
meetings.  Vendor exhibits will also be offered.

What is Software Technical Risk?
================================

This conference concerns itself with technical risks that threaten successful
software product development.  It is not concerned with the most prevalent
symptoms, cost and schedule overruns, but attempts to deal with underlying
causes and mitigation strategies.  Similarly, the conference does not focus
on safety risks when using systems containing software.  

Participant Information
=======================

Individuals or teams interested in making a 45 minute presentation (including
questions and discussions) must submit a 2000 or 3000 word abstract and a 
brief biography to the general chair, George Pandelios.  Preference will be
given to submissions that demonstrate results of the application of risk
management in software development projects.


Submission Deadlines
====================

Extended abstracts are due no later than October 31, 1992.  Accepted
presenters will be notified by November 13, 1992.


Send abstracts to:

George Pandelios
Software Engineering Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA  15213-3890
Phone:  (412) 268-7186
Fax:  (412) 268-5758
Internet:  gjp@sei.cmu.edu
From: reid@ss6.cps.msu.edu (Dr Richard J. Reid)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Ada Usage in CS1?
Date: 8 Oct 92 13:55:57 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Michigan State University
Originator: reid@ss6.cps.msu.edu


Among the 253 schools that have responded to our survey, the
following have indicated they are using

Ada

in their CS1 course.

Do you know of any additions or corrections?

Thanks,

Dick

*************************** Ada ********************************

Adelaide University, Australia
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
California State University, Fullerton
California State University, Long Beach
California State University, Northridge
Cranfield Institute of Technology, UK
Flinders University, Australia
Florida Institute of Technology (**From Pascal, 9-23-91)
Georgia State
Lemoyne College
Liverpool University, UK
Naval Postgraduate School
Portsmouth Polytechnic, UK
Santa Clara University (Also reported using C++ in CS1)
Staffordshire Polytechnic, UK
Stockton State College, NJ
Swinburne Institute of Technology, Australia
The University College of Wales, Aberystwth, UK
University of Aston, UK
University of California at Irvine (Also reported using Pascal)
University of Dayton
University of New Orleans
University of Washington
Vermont Technical College
West Virginia University
York University, UK
Xref: sparky comp.lang.ada:2977 comp.realtime:1198
From: rlk@VisiCom.COM (Bob Kitzberger)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.realtime
Subject: Re: What is "real-time"?
Date: 15 Oct 92 21:41:30 GMT

val@news.ccutah.edu (Val Kartchner) writes:

>I've given definitions of "real-time" from three different English language
>dictionaries.  Everyone seems to say that these are insufficient in a
>computer science context.  However, no one has actually posted an alternate
>third-party definition of "real-time".  I'll agree to use a formal definition
>as given by the FAQ of the comp.realtime group (sight unseen).

I've cross-posted this to comp.realtime (forgive me ;-).  I've followed 
many a thread on comp.realtime discussing this worn-out topic, but haven't
saved any of it.  

Can anyone from comp.realtime post a pithy summary definition of 
comp.realtime's "conclusions" on what is real-time?

	.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
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: koehnema@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Harry Koehnemann)
Subject: Re: Ada and real-time
Followup-To: comp.lang.ada
Reply-To: koehnema@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Harry Koehnemann)
Organization: Arizona State University
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 19:13:49 GMT

In article <1992Oct15.163026.7899@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com> walls@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Gerald Walls) writes:
>In article <1992Oct15.144135.24045@sei.cmu.edu> jbg@sei.cmu.edu (John Goodenough) writes:
>>
>>By "non-deterministic tasking" do you mean the fact that it can be difficult
>>or impossible to write down a timeline for a set of Ada tasks, given
>>variations in execution times and the effect of preemption?  If so, this is
>>not, in itself, sufficient reason to conclude that Ada tasking is unsuitable
>>for embedded real-time systems.  
>
>the FAA requires this in avionics software.  Ada tasking is not
>suitable for real-time avionics software.

It's kind of hard to use modern techniques to satisfy an old requirements
document.  You shouldn't blaim FAA policy on Ada.  Tasking *is* suitable
for real-time avionics software, it just hard (costly) to certify it using
the FAA's criteria.  BTW, isn't their requirements doc changig soon?
What's the new one say about all this?
--
Harry Koehnemann
koehnema@enuxha.eas.asu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: stt@spock.camb.inmet.com (Tucker Taft)
Subject: Re: User-defined assignment
Keywords: User-defined assignment, ":=", finalization, data abstraction
Organization: Intermetrics Inc, Cambridge MA
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 23:13:46 GMT

In article <1992Oct16.115805.15575@cfmu.eurocontrol.be> 
stef@cfmu.eurocontrol.be (Stef Van Vlierberghe) writes:
> . . .
>Ideally you would submit a comment to ada9x-mrt@inmet.com, then it will
>get filed in their database, and forwarded to DRs and ISO delegates. As
>these comments are processed automatically, they have to start with the
>following header :
>
>!topic User defined assignment
>!reference MS-5.2,7.4.1,7.4.5;4.0

Please don't use this format.  It will be rejected by our automatic
mail processing tool.  Each reference should be on its own line:

  !reference MS-5.2;4.0
  !reference MS-7.4.1;4.0
  !reference MS-7.4.5;4.0

In case you are interested, these references refer to sections
of the Ada 9X Mapping Specification, version 4.0, which is on-line
on the ajpo machine, available via anonymous ftp.

>!discussion

We do encourage people to comment on this issue.

The fundamental difficulty we face is the fact that
Ada already supports exceptions and abort (something only
beginning to appear in C++), and having full support
for user-defined assignment and finalization without imposing
significant per-object space overhead requires an approach
based on some kind of program counter (PC) map of the program.
Currently Ada exception handlers are typically implemented using
PC maps, but they don't have to handle the granularity of
individual component initializations of a composite object, which
would be necessary to fully support finalization via a PC map.

Array initializations are problem the worst, since these generally
occur in a loop, and so the finalization would to be done
for only those elements for which initialiation succeeded, requiring
that the exception handler have a loop that depended on the state
of the initialization loop at the time of the exception.

It will be interesting to see how C++ implementations adapt to
accommodate the addition of exception handling, given that they
already support destructors and user-defined assignment without
per-object overhead (in general).  I have seen some descriptions
of PC-map based approaches, but they seemed both complex and incomplete.
Does anyone know the strategy/complexity/efficiency of HP's C++ 
(which supposedly supports exception handling, and of course destructors)?

>-- 
>Stef VAN VLIERBERGHE            Eurocontrol - Central Flow Management Unit
>stef@cfmu.eurocontrol.be        Avenue des Arts 19H
>Tel: +32 2 729 33 42            B-1040 BRUSSELS
>Fax: +32 2 729 32 16            Belgium

S. Tucker Taft   stt@inmet.com
Ada 9X Mapping/Revision Team
Intermetrics, Inc.
Cambridge, MA  02138


Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: ulf@julius.c3consult.comm.se (Ulf Lagerstedt)
Subject: Good Ada development tools on Sparc?
Organization: Communicator C3Consult AB
Distribution: comp
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 12:35:44 GMT



Since I have been unable to locate a FAQ, I'd be grateful for any advice
or pointers to information about good SPARC-based Ada development tools. 
(So far, I only know about the Rational Environment.) 


Some points to consider (you don't have to know about them all):

- Compiler/interpreter/linker: 
	Support for short edit/compile/test-cycles? 
	Incremental linker? 
	Editor integration?
	Performance analysis? 
- Debugger: 
	Source/assembly level? 
	Graphical, screen-based or simple TTY interface?
- GUI-tools: 
	Code library? 
	Interactive GUI-designer? 
	Application framework? 
- Interfaces: Other languages, etc?
- Vendor: Name, phone, fax? Approximate cost?


I'm also interested in cheaper "low-end" environments, in case you have any 
first-hand experience. 


Thanks!

--
Ulf Lagerstedt                  "When the grammar checker identifies an error,
Communicator C3Consult           it suggests a correction and can even makes
Stockholm, Sweden                some changes for you."
ulf@c3consult.comm.se           Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0 User's Guide.
From: michael.hagerty@nitelog.com (Michael Hagerty) 
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: MS Windows GUI tools
Date: 12 Oct 92 08:08:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Nitelog BBS - Monterey, CA - 408-655-1096
Reply-To: michael.hagerty@nitelog.com (Michael Hagerty) 

On 10-11-92, KNAZIK BOB wrote to ALL:

KB> Are there any decent GUI tools which generate Ada code for PCs
KB> running under MS Windows ?  I have a project that I can develop
KB> in either C++ or Ada, but I would like to use a GUI generator tool.

I've seen XVT used in other projects here and it works slick.  When I
called the folks at XVT (Boulder, CO) to ask about an Ada binding, they
seemed amused.  After mulling it over internally, they came back with a
very large (I seem to remember $40-45K) non-recurring engineering cost
for the binding.

I understand their position.  DoD's consistent slow-rolling has made it
very expensive for Ada users.  When there is not a large market, the cost
of the tools is high.  They may change their pricing if they see a huge
increase in the size of the market, but that would require religious
changes in the people who are required to use Ada by law.

Regards, Mikey (michael.hagerty@nitelog.com)
 * JABBER v1.3B1 #B042 * Similia similibus curentur [Hahnemann, 1796]
                                                                                                                                             
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: mitchumm@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu (Michael Mitchum)
Subject: Alsys 386/ Float_IO.put problem
Organization: Software Engineering Institute
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 19:46:38 GMT

	I am using a shared account so if you respond please place
a note in the beginning of the text specifying that you are responding to 
Mark Kaminsky.

	Has anyone had a problem with float_io.put using the Alsys compiler?
I have noticed that when I put a float to a string I will often times get
a value that is very much different than the float that I was trying to
convert.
	If anyone has had this problem or has any more information, I would
appreciate hearing about it.

	Thanks 

		Mark Kaminsky...





Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: steele@dimsum.jpl.nasa.gov (Rob Steele)
Subject: NYU Ada ED
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 18:20:45 GMT

I attempted to download the NYU adaed compiler and was unable to
extract the files from the tar'ed versions I downloaded. I got a
checksum error. Does anybody have an idea on how I should be
downloading these files. 

				Rob Steele
				steele@telerobotics.jpl.nasa.gov

				(818) 354-4847

Xref: sparky comp.lang.ada:2985 comp.realtime:1205
From: hansen@micro.cs.umn.edu (David M. Hansen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.realtime
Subject: Re: What is "real-time"?
Date: 16 Oct 92 23:14:52 GMT
Article-I.D.: news2.1992Oct16.231452.12721
Organization: University of Minnesota

Just to throw a wrench in things...

Many people will define a real-time system in terms of its execution speed,
e.g., "it must complete certain tasks before a deadline", or "an answer that is
late is the wrong answer."  These definitions aren't bad, but they leave out
(what I consider) a critical component: an answer that's _early_ is just as 
bad as one that's late.  Imagine a program sending data to a modem one character at a time.  If the program loads the (single-character, in this example) 
transmit buffer _before_ transmission of the previous character has been
completed, the data is mangled and the program has failed.  Similarly, when
receiving data, the program must react quickly enough to snatch each 
character from the receive buffer before the next incoming character over-
writes it.  Both components are critical.

A better definition, I think (this is not original BTW), is that a real-time
system must _manage_ time as a resource.  Certainly, it must meet all its 
deadlines (I imagine that word has an interesting etymology), but also it
must delay taking action on a calculation if that calculation completes before
its answer is required.


					-=Dave