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: <11962@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Fri, 21-Feb-86 14:03:27 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.11962 Posted: Fri Feb 21 14:03:27 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 24-Feb-86 07:32:23 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:1921 net.lang.ada:647 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'. The posting I was responding to, by asserting that '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 and the former paragraph is moot. ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720