From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 10.66.231.8 with SMTP id tc8mr1845556pac.43.1369955398000; Thu, 30 May 2013 16:09:58 -0700 (PDT) Path: border1.nntp.ams3.giganews.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!border2.nntp.ams3.giganews.com!border2.nntp.ams2.giganews.com!border4.nntp.ams.giganews.com!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com!feeder2-2.proxad.net!proxad.net!feeder1-2.proxad.net!feeder.erje.net!us.feeder.erje.net!xmission!news.snarked.org!newsfeed.news.ucla.edu!usenet.stanford.edu!c5no41293311pbj.1!news-out.google.com!d5ni22792pbl.0!nntp.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.earthlink.com!news.earthlink.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 30 May 2013 18:09:57 -0500 From: Dennis Lee Bieber Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Gnat 2013 is out! Date: Thu, 30 May 2013 19:09:56 -0400 Organization: > Bestiaria Support Staff < Message-ID: <0jmfq8pekf23kpe5ea0mki6tgtclisoi73@invalid.netcom.com> References: <32d94173-533a-471e-95a0-abb73a6cdcc2@googlegroups.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 3.3/32.846 X-No-Archive: YES MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 76.253.96.209 X-Trace: sv3-0EnNlVGVecq3V+P0bh8vqOGRqqiSuKJjx3pzj/yYF+zrbAreo1IvSUHyfEuOcnl3m5H7hgbRCoTOmWS!Miea3GbnCDG9AwVFQhXB3aWb6yOyj403xzIm6iTFrvC6XEDTdTS3p8VedV5a5Sd6toDmpqfHAaM5!w992RHz8V6xENhpiwWtad0E9pF1uarmb8jUsS/b0nw== X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 X-Original-Bytes: 3406 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Xref: number.nntp.dca.giganews.com comp.lang.ada:181771 Date: 2013-05-30T19:09:56-04:00 List-Id: On Thu, 30 May 2013 09:01:17 +0100, Bill Findlay declaimed the following in comp.lang.ada: > > The worst 'program' I ever saw was 'written' in 'FORTRAN'. > Yes, those quotes are meant to scare you. > > In the mid 80s a graduate student visiting Glasgow was sent to me for help. > A program, which she had brought with her from an even more ancient seat of > learning, would not work on the GU Computing Service computer. > Each subroutine had many parameters, the actual parameters of most calls > being being a selection of variables from the COMMON areas. > > Variables in COMMON were also used directly. > Many times. Many, many times. Many times. > Ouch! While FORTRAN's pass-by-reference could be dangerous (the infamous [and maybe urban legend] non-constant constant in some early compilers) when the same actual is provided to multiple arguments, mixing COMMON and argument passing at the same time is something I never encountered. And the Xerox Sigma FORTRAN-IV masked some dangers with a GLOBAL statement (working from memory, the statement keyword may have been different) -- basically GLOBAL X, Y, Z expanded into COMMON /X/ X COMMON /Y/ Y COMMON /Z/ Z IE; each named variable became part of a named common block with the same name. No chance of implicitly equivalencing variables when a common block was used with different data types. -- Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN wlfraed@ix.netcom.com HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/