Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[l107353@cliffy.lfwc.lockheed.com (Garlington KE)]

Robert I. Eachus (eachus@spectre.mitre.org) wrote:
:    The point is that the software maintainer can look at the source
: file and know what child units exist, not that implementers are
: forbidden to add them...
:    Right, this is and should be a voluntary annotation in most
: environments.  But I expect that if support is forthcoming, the
: safety critical people will not only use it, their coding standards
: will insist on it.

As a safety-critical person, I don't have a problem with someone wanting this
pragma, but I wouldn't see us scrambling to add this to our coding standards,
either. My compiler, design tool, and CM tool all provide concise descriptions
of the structure of my application; I expect that the compiler, at least, will
continue to do so for Ada 95 and include package hierarchies in that
description.

I would be more concerned with the issue of having to modify the parent
package every time I add a child. Usually, our coding standards prohibit
references of this type, since (a) it adds cost and (b) the more items you
have to change, the greater the likelihood of inadvertantly inserting an
error.

Personally, I'm looking forward to being able to reuse more packages without
modifications. I think this will significantly improve safety (if we don't
break the compiler along the way! :)

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Ken Garlington                  GarlingtonKE@lfwc.lockheed.com
F-22 Computer Resources         Lockheed Fort Worth Co.

If LFWC or the F-22 program has any opinions, they aren't telling me.