C vs. Ada

C vs. Ada

[Charles Hannum]

Some of you have apparently decided to continue this war in email.  Well I'm
going to tell you only once:

   STOP SENDING ME MAIL ABOUT IT!!!


Now that that is out of the way, let me summarize my opinion on this subject:

I have used, do use, and will continue to use C.  Just because some people
have just recently discovered that "YES!, you CAN crash your machine with a C
program!" is not enough to make ME stop using it.

When I find bugs (which are almost always caused by programmer stupidity and
NOT by the language), I fix them.  It's pretty simple.  If anyone thinks that
a programming language can make you write perfect programs, let me be (hope-
fully) the first to tell you that YOU ARE FULL OF **IT!

Besides, I write some fairly useful software in C, and also in assembler.  And
I'm not going to stop writing in assembly language simply because "YES!, you
can crash your machine with an assembly language program!", either.


Don't bother to reply of followup to this article; I won't read past the sub-
ject line.


Virtually,
- Charles Martin Hannum II       "Klein bottle for sale ... inquire within."
    (That's Charles to you!)     "To life immortal!"
  cmh117@psuvm.{bitnet,psu.edu}  "No noozzzz izzz netzzzsnoozzzzz..."
  c9h@psuecl.{bitnet,psu.edu}    "Mem'ry, all alone in the moonlight ..."

Re: C and assembler crashing the machine

[Terry J. Westley]

In article <90076.002500CMH117@psuvm.psu.edu> CMH117@psuvm.psu.edu (Charles Hannum) writes:
...[stuff deleted]
>I have used, do use, and will continue to use C.  Just because some people
>have just recently discovered that "YES!, you CAN crash your machine with a C
>program!" is not enough to make ME stop using it.
...[more stuff deleted]
>Besides, I write some fairly useful software in C, and also in assembler.  And
>I'm not going to stop writing in assembly language simply because "YES!, you
>can crash your machine with an assembly language program!", either.
>

Anyone who thinks that Ada prevents stupid mistakes or will prevent
crashing the machine or will make all code easy to read and understand
does not know Ada well.

The real question is:  who should we let know about this?  :-)

Terry J. Westley
Arvin/Calspan Advanced Technology Center
P.O. Box 400, Buffalo, NY 14225
acsu.buffalo.edu!planck!hercules!westley