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Date: 9 Dec 92 06:02:18 GMT
From: seas.gwu.edu!mfeldman@uunet.uu.net  (Michael Feldman)
Subject: Re: FORTRAN bug(was Re: C++ vs. Ada -- Is Ada loosing?)
Message-ID: <1992Dec9.060218.23940@seas.gwu.edu>
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <1992Dec8.172551.16780@newshost.lanl.gov> jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (J. G
iles) writes:

[stuff deleted]
>
>Well, not quite.  The proper moral is that all programming languages
>(even informal specification languages) have contexts in which single
>character errors can lead to linguistically correct programs which
>don't compute the intended functionality.  The moral often stated
>instead is that this is a bad feature of Fortran.  While Fortran
>could indeed have been designed better, it is not the only language
>with, or even the most severly affected by, this kind of problem.
>
You make a good point. Perhaps the modern equivalent of that Fortran
single-keystroke bug is my favorite bit of C code (and no, I don't
want to bash C, just point out how common these flukes are):

   int x;
   ...
   x = 1;
   while (x <= 10);
   { 
      printf("%d\n", x);
      x++;
   }

For 10 points on your grade: what is printed? Why?
Try explaining it to a freshman.

Any similar idiosyncracies in Ada? 

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."
------------------------------------------------------------------------