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=0.7 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!lll-crg!lll-lcc!ucdavis!ucbvax!brahms!weemba From: weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener) Newsgroups: net.lang,net.lang.ada Subject: Re: Integer division semantics; Ada Message-ID: <11961@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Fri, 21-Feb-86 13:45:20 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.11961 Posted: Fri Feb 21 13:45:20 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 24-Feb-86 07:31:40 EST References: <11610@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <5100003@ccvaxa> <548@ism780c.UUCP> <11923@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <728@harvard.UUCP> Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: weemba@brahms.UUCP (Matthew P. Wiener) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Keywords: Ada, programming language selection, Ada-bashing Xref: linus net.lang:1920 net.lang.ada:646 Summary: Gratuitous Ada-bashing retracted List-Id: Perhaps the following belongs to e-mail only, but I'm willing to apologize for the gratuitous Ada-bashing. I was rather stunned at the attitude that "Ada does it that way so it must be right" in the posting I had ridiculed. In article <728@harvard.UUCP> macrakis@harvard.UUCP (Stavros Macrakis) writes: >In a discussion of division standards, Matthew P. Wiener >(weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU) brings up some questions about the role >of Ada: > <11610@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> >> ...many of the largest defense companies/contractors consider Ada to >> be a complete joke and have no intention of making it available >> unless their programmers start screaming and begging for it. > >You appear to have a strange model of programming language choice. >Do you have some documentation for your claims? It comes from talking to numerous people who work at such places over the years. Condescension and derision were the usual attitude, and I was passing it along. Comments like "Didn't DoD have the same hopes for COBOL? Hardy Har Har." were typical. I should emphasize this attitude does not reflect on the language so much as on the DoD == fubar equation. >> ... Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if they chose the boneheaded >> way of doing integer division for idiotic reasons anyway. ... [And >> to net.lang.ada readers: sorry for picking on Ada, but I realize >> many of you have no choice in the matter anyway.] > >Insults and condescension don't help your argument. Then I'll say it politely: the mathematically boneheaded way of doing integer division does not seem to have much inherently logical reasons for being adopted, yet it is nearly universal in computer languages. The article I was replying to asked why hadn't I or others who care about the matter given input to the language when we had the chance. I suspect that such input was ignored--the discussion on integer division has mostly re- vealed "idiotic reasons" for supporting the traditional implementation--and I wouldn't be surprised if they followed the tradition. But it seems Ada has both 'mod' and 'rem': but the posting I was responding to ('rem' is the winner in the great integer division debate since Ada does it that way) seemed to imply that it only had 'rem'. So I stand corrected. ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720