Re: Language pitfalls (was Re: FORTRAN bug)

[seas.gwu.edu!mfeldman@uunet.uu.net (Michael Feldman)]

In article <252@visicom.com> rlk@VisiCom.COM (Bob Kitzberger) writes:

[good stuff deleted]
>
>(*) Of course, Ada programmers spend more time with compile-time syntax
>    errors than anyone else ;-)

I think this is _almost_ right. In my experience, the difficulty is
not with _syntax_ (are the structures formed correctly?) but with
_semantic checking_ (do the types match?). Both are compile-time
issues. In my experience with everyone from freshmen to experienced
industry folks, the pure syntax problems go away after a few weeks of
coding; the semantic ones never do. Ada's type system is complicated,
powerful, and designed to be _very_ safe, and therefore the type
checking is a pain in the neck to get through the compiler.

It should come as no surprise to regular readers of my junk that I think
it's worth it.

Mike Feldman

PS - the semantic checking is harder to write into the compiler, too!