Re: Comments on Ada vs. C++ panel

[cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!csc.ti .com!tilde.csc.ti.com!mksol!mccall@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (fred j mccall 575-3539]

In <1993Feb3.055305.16347@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> willett@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (david
.c.willett) writes:

[Good analysis of potential reasons motivating language selection
deleted.] 

>	At the other extreme is the 24-48 person-month effort which 
>is central to a sophisticated system of software.  Here is where I'd 
>want to make very sure that the techniques used were consistent and 
>rigorous.  You suggest that ogranizational standards (may I infer
>software management? ) could enforce such techniques so the language
>doesn't have to.  I submit that compilers are better "enforcers" than
>people.  They are consistent.  They are equitable.  They do not crack
>under cost or schedule pressures.  The bottom line is that they are
>generally better at the job.

I see the better solution as simply not electing to 'crack' and
deciding that quality and well-engineered software are more important
than 'schedule crunch'.  Difficult in the real world, to be sure, but
more and more organizations seem to be coming around to this point of
view.  Other than that, it seems to me that a good up-front design
would meet most of the requirements you've listed.  After all, that's
why we do modular software, abstraction, and all those other good
things, right?  To get the pieces of the problem down small enough so
that they are back in that category of "small and well-insulated from
the rest of the world".  

Once you have that kind of design and have specified the interfaces
between the pieces, you're back out of the realm described above.  Of
course, Ada makes it much more difficult to 'hack' out a solution, and
so encourages all that up-front work that a good engineer should be
doing anyway, but I'm not convinced that that is sufficient
justification for mandating its use or for feeling that other
languages are so unsuitable (which is where this sort of started
from).  

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
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Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.