From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 9 Feb 93 16:44:41 GMT From: 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 ) Subject: Re: Comments on Ada vs. C++ panel Message-ID: <1993Feb9.164441.7108@mksol.dseg.ti.com> List-Id: 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.