[net.lang.pascal] Test suites--and ANSI addresses.

bprice@bmcg.UUCP (08/23/84)

>From: karl@dartvax.UUCP
>I have been interested for a while now in obtaining a validation
>suite for Jensen & Wirth Pascal. I wrote to the ANSI committee,
>but either they're busy, they don't care, or I put the wrong
>address on the envelope.
My collections of X3J9 documents (X3J9 is the ANSI Pascal Committee.  It
is also known as JPC, the Joint ANSI X3J9/IEEE Pascal Standards Committee.)
doesn't include any letter that we have received.  In any case, JPC is not
allowed to have to do with validation suites--what you would have gotten is
a pointer to the US distributor for the British validation suite.  see below.

>   1. Does anyone know for sure what address the ANSI committee
>lives at?
If you want to send anything to JPC, you should send it to 
Ken Zemrowski, 
X3J9 Chairman,
Advanced Computer Techniques, 
1501 Wilson Blvd.,
Arlington, VA 22209;  

also send a copy to 
X3 Secretariat, 
CBEMA, 
Suite 500, 
311 First Street NW, 
Washington, DC 20001.
If Ken can handle it personally, he will:  if it needs committee attention, he
will insure that it gets brought up as soon as the rules allow (usually at the
next meeting).  An ANSI technical committee is required to respond to any
technical issues that are brought to its attention, and Ken is very good at
making JPC work right.

As an alternative, you can E-mail an article or letter to me (see the
signature), and I'll see to it that JPC gets it, either at the next quarterly
meeting, or in the next between-meetings mailing.

>   2. Even better, does anyone have a test suite that I could
>have? I am mainly interested in lexical and syntactic tests at the
>moment, though I would be more than happy to have the whole thing.
>I can also affordd a reasonable price.
Bob Dietrich is sending out the address of the US agent for the Validation
Suite produced in England for the British Standard Pascal.  There is no
validation suite for J&W Pascal, because Wirth's definition was too vague to be
able to validate.  The standard is basically an agreement, among all who cared
enough to get involved, on how to interprete J&W in a consistent, usable,
verifiable manner.  As a result, conformance to the standard results in
programs which are very likely to be portable, and lack of conformance will
produce less portability.  Because of this, J&W is obsolete as a definition of
the language.


-- 
--Bill Price    uucp:   {decvax!ucbvax  philabs}!sdcsvax!bmcg!bprice
                arpa:?  sdcsvax!bmcg!bprice@nosc