From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,3ccb707f4c91a5f2 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: lars.farm@ite.mh.se (Lars Farm) Subject: Re: Java vs Ada 95 (Was Re: Once again, Ada absent from DoD SBIR solicitation) Date: 1996/10/16 Message-ID: <19961016113937528911@dialup120-4-1.swipnet.se>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 189779584 references: <01bbb57f$7fb59020$72663389@billn.logicon.com> <325BC3B3.41C6@hso.link.com> <325D7F9B.2A8B@gte.net> <325FF8D0.6660@io.com> <1996Oct15.150155.1@eisner> organization: pv nntp-posting-user: s-49817 newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-10-16T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Larry Kilgallen wrote: > It seems to me, therefore, that "has GC" does not belong in the standard > or in an annex any more than "has an optimizing back end". Standards > must leave some areas for implementors to differentiate themselves, > or else one will be stuck like Unix or HTML with each implementor > striving to add their own source-incompatible "added-value" extensions > thereby undercutting the standard. GC, peephole optimizers, and the > like can all be left unstandardized without harm to source portability. No! There must be a way to prevent programs that rely on GC from beeing accepted by a compiler that does not support GC. The designs will be different. GC may well be optional, but there must be a standard way to detect at compiletime that "Error at line 534: Sorry, GC is an optional and not implemented feature, please buy a compiler from one of our competitors instead". Otherwise you can not trust your own program and you can not share your code with others. It might compile and work on one compiler, but compile and fail miserably on another. This is something that I thought would be considered absolutely unacceptable for Ada;-) GC is certainly not just an optimization. GC affects design. The nice thing is that a program written without knowledge of GC will work even if GC is present. At least as much as a program is now portable between different compilers and OS. A program designed with GC in mind will not function without GC, so there must be a way to prevent such a program from compiling where GC is unavailable. -- Lars Farm, lars.farm@ite.mh.se