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From: "Case Crab" <casecrab@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: why learn C?
Date: 29 Mar 2007 23:30:12 -0700
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On Mar 29, 10:52 pm, "jimmaureenrog...@worldnet.att.net"
<jimmaureenrog...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> On Mar 29, 6:51 pm, "kevin  cline" <kevin.cl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > No, what actually happened is that expert C++ developers learned to
> > use C++ in such a way that those errors can not happen.  While it is
> > possible to write unsafe code in C++, it is also possible to adopt
> > coding guidelines that makes it easy to find and eliminate unsafe
> > code, and for most applications, that's quite good enough.
>
> Coding guidelines cannot by themselves prevent any errors.

Really?  I have found that coding practices can preclude certain
classes of errors.

> For example,
> the JSF AV C++ Coding Standard, which is intended to limit the unsafe
> features of C++, contains 221 rules.

How many rules distinguish SPARK from the full Ada language?

> It is not possible to check
> 6 million lines of code against 221 rules by hand in any timely or
> economical manner.

I expect that most of the checking can and will be done
automatically.  In any case, I would expect such
mission-critical code would be inspected, regardless of whether the
implementation language is C++ or Ada.

>
> The NASA Ada Flight Software coding guidelines contain 14 rules.
> The intent of both coding standards is to produce software safe enough
> to use for airborne avionics systems.

Interesting that one organization has 221 rules while the other has
only 14.

> Coding standards can help up to a point. When the coding standards are
> oppresively complex they cease to help.

Compile-time checks can also help, up to a point.  But they don't
solve the whole problem.