Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!tgr!RCONN@SIMTEL20.ARPA
From: RCONN@SIMTEL20.ARPA (Rick Conn)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: A Validated Ada Compiler for the IBM PC/XT!
Message-ID: <9073@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 8-Mar-85 09:25:48 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.9073
Posted: Fri Mar  8 09:25:48 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 11-Mar-85 05:28:43 EST
Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA
Lines: 34

Paul,

	Your point is well-taken.  For very large projects, especially
when a good CM system or library management system is not available
to keep the libraries in sync, offloading may not be feasible.  However,
I continue to feel that there are many situations in which offloading
(at least during unit coding and testing) is quite feasible.

	I am just now completing involvement in a spelling checker
program, which is a small- to medium-sized effort.  The design was
oriented around two major objects: the DOCUMENT to be checked and
the DICTIONARY (there can be more than one) to check against.  There
are two packages which deal with these objects, DOCUMENT_HANDLER and
DICTIONARY_MANAGER, and each package was assigned to one person to
code and unit test.  The specifications, which, of course, were subject
to change, were planned during the design phase, and the development
(including coding and unit testing) of the bodies was done in complete
independence.  Such development could easily have been offloaded to
a PC if an Ada compiler existed for one.  The only requirement for this
would be that the MACHINE_DEPENDENCIES packages be duplicated on each
PC.  Each package was in complete control of its object; the
DOCUMENT_HANDLER was given the name of a file containing a
document and provided words and context information to its user.
The user was never concerned with details of document structure or
manipulation.  To illustrate, MICRO: contains the
spec to DOCUMENT_HANDLER as the file DH.ADA.

	Integration of these and other independently-written packages
is now taking place with a high degree of success.  I feel that this
object-oriented mindset is key to this success, and Ada is instrumental
in supporting it.

		Rick
-------