mcdaniel (12/12/82)
#N:uiucdcs:21700016:000:1733
uiucdcs!mcdaniel Dec 11 22:42:00 1982
I have just spent an afternoon and an evening tracking down an Ida (tm)
error. Ida is that program which is laughingly referred to as an "Extended
Ada" compiler. Ghod only knows what the extensions are! I mean, an Ada compiler
which does not permit non-static arrays, array aggregates and operations
-- the problem above, tasking, exception handling, et cetera . . .
The problem in question led to such informative error messages
as "INTERNAL ERROR", "Attempting to assign to an SILItem?",
"USER ERROR" (my favorite), with no indication of what or where
the problem is. People working on this project with me have had
similar experiences (the difficulty of using the TEXT_IO substitute, for
example).
We have therefore decided to have a "Human Sacrifice Party", with selected
Intel employees as the guests of honor.
I would like to know (VIA MAIL, of course):
(1) who was/were in charge of the compiler project?
(2) who (singular or plural) allowed such a half-baked project to go
out, even to a university guinea pig? (Mental cruelty laws apply here.
I wouldn't wish this system on Attila the Hun. Well, maybe.)
(3) who is/are in charge of the 432 project as a whole?
(4) who else would you like to see done to death gorily, and why?
(5) any favorite sacrifice methods? (Messr. Gunsch favors an old Viking
method: cut open the back and extract the lungs. As the diaphragm
can not pump the lungs in such a situation, this technique leads
to slow, painful suffocation. Myself, I prefer the tried-and-true
Aztec method.)
All flames to erewhon!root, please.
Tim McDaniel
(. . . pur-ee!uiucdcs!mcdaniel)