Re: What I miss... (really C, Ada, religion)

[jans@orca.UUCP (Jan Steinman)]

brooks@lll-crg.UUCP (Eugene D. Brooks III) writes:
>...I subscribed to net.ada for a month a year ago in apology to a ADA nut
>for posting the statement "ADA sucks" to the net.

You really have your own version of reality, don't you!  I was that "Ada nut"
who chastised you for your statement.  What I said then was not especially
nut like, and was not much different to where I have taken this discussion
when I edited the subject line: keep an open mind -- Ada is not the end of
language development, but it has some interesting and useful things.

>There were a total of two articles on net.ada that month, which is proof
>enough that ADA is a language that is devoid if serious use.

We netters are an incestuous lot, most of us running on machines that run
little but 'C' code.  If you look again, you'll notice that net.lang.ada
has been gateway'ed to ARPANET, and now has dozens of articles each time I
look.

>The only people who like it are those who can't manage to write correct
>programs and need a crutch like subscript checking even in a production
>version of a code.

For a real laugh, put this in your resume and apply to any DOD contractor.
They like it because the government has said they will use it.  Their
programmers like it because (accourding to Source EDP, a recruitment firm)
it is worth 20% more pay.  And I won't even get into why their evaluators,
porters, and QC people like it, but it's mostly due to enhanced reliability
and maintenability.

>If you program has a proof of correctness, and it checks its input data
>properly, it does not need range checks on subscripts.  Such checking only
>slows the computer down.  I don't have spare cycles for such a wast of time.

If you (sic) programming is as good as your spelling, don't wast (sic) your
time programming!  No, I'm not just being sarcastic -- the point is that the
best of us (even REAL programmers) make mistakes.  Sure, I know you were
just writing quickly.  How would you like to be able to program that quick
and have the language catch your mistakes, instead of some obnoxious netter?

>REAL programmers don't need subscript checking, they write lint free code
>automatically.  Please leave your ADA hype on net.ada where no one is
>bothering to read it!

Ada has many architectural features besides subscript checking that are
certainly of interest to open minded people.  When was the last time you
wrote tasking code in 'C'?  Did you use sockets or pipes?  How many trips
to the manual pages did it take?  How many times have you struggled with
'setjump' and 'longjump' in order to return to a non-local routine after
encountering exceptional circumstances?  The architecture of Ada, and the
issues of implementing them, are some of the hottest topics around, if you
know where they're being discussed and care to enlighten yourself!
-- 
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