Re: What's an annex? stratum?

Robert Dewar
2007-06-25T20:47:14Z

Robert Dewar wrote:
> Michael Eager wrote:
>
>
>> Internals documentation provides a guide through the program in
>> some kind of logical order. It's difficult to provide that order
>> at the file or function scope.
>
> Well the sources can provide a clear logical order,
> e.g. the child hierarchy and the separate specs and bodies in an
> Ada program. Anyway, see the GNAT front end, where by policy there
> are NO separate design documents, for an indication of what I
> consider ideal, or almost ideal (probably one short page of the
> form .. start here, then ... would be helpful).

For instance, I am not sure there is anywhere in the front end
that says that par-chx is the parser routines for chapter x
constructs in the RM, and sem_chx is the semantics routines.
One thing that helps in the case of Ada is that everyone is
familiar with the standard document (the Ada RM) so that provides
an overall organization if the sources follow it closely (which
they do for GNAT). Following the C standard closely would not
be so helpful, and of course there is no analogous standard for
the back end.