From owner-freebsd-ports  Fri Mar  5  0:30:18 1999
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Date: Fri,  5 Mar 1999 00:22:54 -0800 (PST)
From: dcs@newsguy.com
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Subject: ports/10396: SPIN is in the wrong category
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>Number:         10396
>Category:       ports
>Synopsis:       SPIN is in the wrong category
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-ports
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          change-request
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Fri Mar  5 00:30:00 PST 1999
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Daniel C. Sobral
>Release:        Not relevant
>Organization:
>Environment:
Not relevant
>Description:
SPIN is presently in the MATH category. It was submitted as
a LANG category port, so I don't know why it ended in MATH.
>How-To-Repeat:
find /usr/ports -name spin -print
>Fix:
First, SPIN's short description ought to mention it processes a
model written in PROMELA. I suggest the following:
An on-the-fly verification system for asynchronous concurrent systems based on PROMELA

Otherwise, searches for the PROMELA language will fail.

Second, while it's presence in LANG might be questioned, PROMELA
is a language, and SPIN does "simulate" a run in promela
(basically, interprets a PROMELA program -- but since PROMELA is
non-deterministic, it is called "simulation")... I think it 
rather belongs in DEVEL, though, as it's main use is validation.

The point here is that while SPIN is used to validate "models",
they are rather *programming* models, not abstract math models.
By the same token, one could put all compilers in MATH, since
they are all based on formal languages...

At the very least, I'd expect adding a virtual category to it.



>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:


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