pro Ada argument?

pro Ada argument?

[horst]

The recent discussion initiated by Ted Holdon's article surprised me
a bit. Nobody answered the argument that I thought would be THE one
in favor of Ada:

  It's not the programmers that decide which language to use in the future

In the European Market we expect to have laws in 1992 that resemble the
American Laws of Product Responsibility. As far as I know, those can make
an implementor responsible for any consequences of using an implementation
language which is not considered the best choice. And there are strong
signals that Ada will be the default 'best choice' for lawyers. Is this
not true for the US?

Regards
 Horst     hk@pcs.com

Re: Ada, 1992, and Product Responsibility

[William Thomas Wolfe, 2847]

From horst@pcsbst.UUCP (horst):
> In the European Market we expect to have laws in 1992 that resemble the
> American Laws of Product Responsibility. As far as I know, those can make
> an implementor responsible for any consequences of using an implementation
> language which is not considered the best choice. And there are strong
> signals that Ada will be the default 'best choice' for lawyers. Is this
> not true for the US?

   The US is going to be behind Europe in many ways once the European
   integration process has completed; the standardization of product
   regulations in Europe will be considerably greater than that which
   exists in the US, for example -- here there are still many different
   regulation systems which vary from state to state (example: insurance),
   and there is no real effort underway to eliminate all the inconsistencies.

   It will probably take a decade or so for the US to catch up, both in
   terms of using Ada and in terms of standardizing its marketplace.  As
   for the product responsibility, I don't think the US lawyers have yet
   discovered this particular approach to demonstrating negligence.
 
   (Cross-posted to misc.legal for further discussion)


   Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu

re: pro Ada argument?

[forsyth]

>From horst@pcsbst.UUCP (horst)
>... Nobody answered the argument that I thought would be THE one
>in favor of Ada:

>  It's not the programmers that decide which language to use in the future

>In the European Market we expect to have laws in 1992 that resemble the
>American Laws of Product Responsibility. As far as I know, those can make
>an implementor responsible for any consequences of using an implementation
>language which is not considered the best choice. And there are strong
>signals that Ada will be the default 'best choice' for lawyers. Is this
>not true for the US?

Horst Kern reports a novel approach to software engineering: let the
lawyers do it.  What a good way of settling technical arguments!  (See
Jacques Ellul's `The Technological Society' [La Technique] for some interesting
consequences of similar ideas.)  Still, I suppose it was no more than
computer scientists deserved for having the temerity to write `expert systems' in Prolog
to analyse the British Nationality Act (1981).  I take it that EEC
legislators will suffer similar penalties if they produce poor `products'
of their own?  Stoppage of claret, perhaps?

Mind you, a good QC with some help (technical advice and an annotated copy
of all those AI-123 notes) should have lots of fun with Ichbiah in the witness box.
Perhaps we should book Leo McKern now?

Re: pro Ada argument?

[horst]

In article <629649952.9223@minster.york.ac.uk> forsyth@minster.york.ac.uk writes:

>  Horst Kern reports a novel approach to software engineering: let the
>  lawyers do it.  What a good way of settling technical arguments!  (See

Okay, I can see the  problem:  Even  though  everyone  was  called  to
participate  in  the  Ada effort, some people - like Edsgar Dijkstra -
have given their reasons for repelling all  three  language  proposals
and  are  now hoping that the Russians will use Ada too. (He made this
statement 6 years ago so it is perhaps not up to date any more.) 

The current discussion makes it evident that the laws (again this word
which  is  so much disliked) of nature have not yet been discovered in
computer science. So I think it is a good discussion and nobody should 
tell Ted Holdon to shut up. 
 
Best regards,
 Horst

Re: Ada, 1992, and Product Responsibility

[Metafont Consultant Account]

In article <7390@hubcap.clemson.edu> billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu writes:
>From horst@pcsbst.UUCP (horst):
>> In the European Market we expect to have laws in 1992 that resemble the
>> American Laws of Product Responsibility. As far as I know, those can make
>> an implementor responsible for any consequences of using an implementation
>> language which is not considered the best choice. And there are strong
>> signals that Ada will be the default 'best choice' for lawyers. Is this
>> not true for the US?
>
>   The US is going to be behind Europe in many ways once the European
>   integration process has completed; the standardization of product
>   regulations in Europe will be considerably greater than that which
>   exists in the US, for example -- here there are still many different
>   regulation systems which vary from state to state (example: insurance),
>   and there is no real effort underway to eliminate all the inconsistencies.
>
>   It will probably take a decade or so for the US to catch up, both in
>   terms of using Ada and in terms of standardizing its marketplace.  As
>   for the product responsibility, I don't think the US lawyers have yet
>   discovered this particular approach to demonstrating negligence.
> 
>   (Cross-posted to misc.legal for further discussion)
>
>
>   Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu


Granted that Ada is a marvelous language in its narrowly defined area
of competence, I think any defense lawyer would have a field day
poking holes in a language that has been frozen by a military
bureaucracy; that ignores best current practice (full fledged OOP);
whose semantics is so ill defined that most programmer users avoid
most of the language most of the time, and most employers put lots of
language features off limits; the implementation of one of whose main
goals (concurrent programming support for embedded multiprocessor
systems) is held up as a horrid example in language theory classes;
whose syntax ignored established usage in favor of cuteness or
uniqueness (read opaqueness); whose behavior is completely
counter-intuitive, and on and on and on.

And I _liked_ my chance to program fancy graph theory algorithms in
Ada generics.  Ada just has no business being pointed to as a standard
of language excellence.  It is too big, too awkward, shows its seams
too prominently, and is _much_ too hard to teach, to learn, and to
use.  The "Dear Ada" column in Ada Letters is always an occassion for
laughter and tears, but never for that warm feeling of satisfaction at
seeing a job well done.

Maybe if the Ada 0x committee develops a bit of gumption, Ada could
be made useful without pain at some future date, but for now...nah.

My opinions only, of course.  Don't blame the folks who furnish the
account.

xanthian@well.sf.ca.us
Kent, the (bionic) man from xanth, now available
as a build-a-xanthian kit at better toy stores.