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Date: 7 Dec 92 17:15:31 GMT
From: seas.gwu.edu!mfeldman@uunet.uu.net  (Michael Feldman)
Subject: Re: Open Systems closed to Ada?
Message-ID: <1992Dec7.171531.6875@seas.gwu.edu>
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <723246251.26591@minster.york.ac.uk> mjl-b@minster.york.ac.uk (Mathe
w Lodge) writes:
>
>The trouble with personal experiences is that they're all different. I know
>of some C++ programmers who used Ada for a project and are now "Ada
>converts". You know some C++ programmers who don't like Ada. I know some who
>do. My example is just as valid as yours, and just as meaningless.
>
Finally, a breath of fresh air in this stifling flame war. Can I suggest -
yet again - a moratorium on the "I like Ada" "I like C++" "So's your old
man" stuff, at least for a while?

This is a group on Ada. The personal experiences and preferences mentioned
by Mathew can be characterized as "religious preferences." The analogy to
religions is pretty decent: in this sense a religion is a _belief system_, 
based on axioms whose truth can be neither proved nor refuted. Adherents to
the religion _believe_ that their axioms are revealed from On High;
adherents to other religions believe the same of _their_ axioms. The
key point is that we are talking about faith, and rational arguments
are not usually helpful in shaking faith.

Let's all do each other a favor: stop proselytizing. The missionary zeal
that seems to flare up every few weeks on this group really gets in the
way of informed - hopefully technical - discussion. If you are a C++
adherent, interested not in understanding my religion but in proselytizing
for your own, please go back to your own church and get your bod out of mine.

If you work for DoD or its contractors, and are therefore subject to the
Mandate - admittedly a state-sponsored religion that applies ONLY to
the DoD software community - either relax and try to understand Ada,
which I assert is the purpose of the group, or go flame somewhere else.

I did not create the mandate, nor did anyone else who reads this group.
Regular readers of this group know I think it was a stupid blunder, but 
it exists and you're stuck with it. I am not; I am here by choice. Spare 
us your constant complaints; go lobby Congress to drop the mandate - they 
put it there in the first place. You're wasting your time here.

Give me and my co-religionists a break. OK? I am quite game to study
comparative religions, as an intellectual exercise. But the crusades have 
gone on too long for me. Stick to the subject or take your shouting
elsewhere.

Thanks much.

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman
co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee

Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
School of Engineering and Applied Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
(202) 994-5253 (voice)
(202) 994-5296 (fax)
mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)

"Americans want the fruits of patience -- and they want them now."
------------------------------------------------------------------------