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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,c406e0c4a6eb74ed X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.megapath.net!news.megapath.net.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 20:27:00 -0500 From: "Randy Brukardt" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: <49dc98cf.0408110556.18ae7df@posting.google.com> <4121E4B4.5080609@noplace.com> <4121FFF1.80404@noplace.com> Subject: Re: ADA Popularity Discussion Request Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 20:27:56 -0500 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4910.0300 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.32.209.38 X-Trace: sv3-0STN0ey/X8etPtbcBgYyOxTd7DW3TpPhUA5+0vAa+0nKGBd+kg1r9pGD8/0XPbBhY3qp0jZKDlx1S71!sRNtTxWMjnfengUqLidenk7E7eYGBGKzl6E6L/z0rInhBFj19q8DvQwYBchhCe/6tEUpp6ka6lJ1 X-Complaints-To: abuse@megapath.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@megapath.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.13 Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:3003 Date: 2004-08-25T20:27:56-05:00 List-Id: "Marin David Condic" wrote in message news:4121FFF1.80404@noplace.com... > Again, more good news. Vector and matrix math included as a standard > annex of some form would add functionality & help encourage people to > make use of Ada. Personally, I think there is enough grist for the mill > in the area of mathematics that there could be a lot more than just > vector and matrix functionality added. As the item you cite observes, > the packages can be implemented in "pure" Ada and hence should pose no > problems to adoption. > > I'd disagree where it says: "Providing secondary standards has not > proved satisfactory because they are not sufficiently visible to the > user community as a whole." Maybe historically, and to a point. The > question is "Would people use a secondary standard if it was blessed by > Ada and included with most/all compilers?" It says that because of history. AI-296 is a slightly modified copy of a standard that has existed for roughly 10 years. When it came up for its 5 year review, many of the people in the WG9 meeting (myself included) had never ever heard of it. There are no known implementations. It's clear that historically at least, secondary standards like this might as well not exist. I think that the implementation rate will go from roughly 0% of all vendors to near 100% of all vendors simply by including it in the primary standard. There have been exceptions to the rule that secondary standards are widely ignored (the original GEF and POSIX 5.a come to mind, but neither of those were ever supported by anywhere near 100% of the compilers), but for the most part, they just don't exist. That goes for users as well - after all, if users demanded support for the standard matrix library, vendors would have given it to them. But users are no more likely to look for and/or know about secondary standards than vendors are. One hopes that an IWA on extending the containers libraries would be more like POSIX than the matrix stuff (and we intend that there is a set of agreed upon extensions for this containers), but there can be no guarantee of that. Randy.