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=-0.5 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_05 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 16 Jul 93 17:34:41 GMT From: dog.ee.lbl.gov!overload.lbl.gov!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!darwin.sura. net!seas.gwu.edu!mfeldman@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Michael Feldman) Subject: Re: How does your language grow? (Follow-up on comments on ADM Tuttle comments) Message-ID: <1993Jul16.173441.22720@seas.gwu.edu> List-Id: In article <9307141657.AA27874@manta.nosc.mil> mshapiro@MANTA.NOSC.MIL (Michael D Shapiro) writes: > [stuff deleted] > >Perhaps one of Ada's acceptance problems is that experimentation >allowing expansion and contraction of the language have been >discouraged. This mode has given gradual growth of most other >programming languages, supporting new programming paradigms as they >arise. Periodic standardization describes a consensus of the >then-current state of the language. The new features allow the >languages to increase their level of helping programmers in writing >programs. I agree with your second sentence, but find your first sentence unsupportable. The _validation_ process has certainly emphasized the notion that subsets and supersets create dialects and therefore Babel. But that's only the _validation_ process. NOTHING has prevented the development of experimental - unvalidated - versions of Ada. One could argue that the "if it ain't validated it ain't Ada" policy of the early years inhibited this kind of experimentation, but the policy was changed de facto as early as (roughly) 1986, and _officially_ in 1988, when the Ada trademark was allowed to lapse. 1988, guys. That's a long time. Anyone wishing to develop extended Ada's (indeed contracted ones, too, but that's not where the action is), was free not only to do so but also to call it Ada. Even if such a system could not legally be validated, it could certainly have been used for any project that wasn't production DoD work. Let's debunk this myth once and for all. I think we can forgive DoD for insisting that compilers used for its serious projects be validated and therefore not support dialects - after all, that's what eliminating the language Babel is all about. But that never stood in the way of the rest of us. I've promised not to contribute to flame wars, so I'll not engage in speculation about why this experimentation didn't really happen. But facts are facts - I NEVER heard anyone discourage experimentation, except when it came to serious compilers for serious DoD projects. University or other lab projects could darn well have done the kind of stuff you mention. I'll leave it to the flamers to fight endlessly about _why_ they didn't do it, but this does _not_ mean they _couldn't_. I've hung around this business for ten years; I think I have my facts straight. > >Ada has had some preprocessor work, but for the most part changes have >had to wait for the next giant step, Ada 9X. While large-scale program >managers may get warm feelings from this approach, many language >experimenters (who might significantly improve the definition) become >uncomfortable waiting for the next orders. They choose to ignore Ada. Phooey. Why should "the rest of us" in language experimentation stand around waiting for orders? Nobody stopped us from moving ahead. Nobody. Cheers - Mike Feldman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael B. Feldman - co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science The George Washington University - Washington, DC 20052 USA 202-994-5253 (voice) - 202-994-5296 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet) "Pork is what those other guys get from the Government." ------------------------------------------------------------------------