From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,8264dac98bc604d8 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1993-03-12 21:49:37 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!udel!darwin.sura.net!seas.gwu.edu!mfeldman From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) Subject: Re: The actual quote from the Post AAS article Message-ID: <1993Mar13.000402.8785@seas.gwu.edu> Sender: news@seas.gwu.edu Organization: George Washington University References: <1no3fbINN3h7@umbc4.umbc.edu> <1993Mar12.161548.6286@evb.com> Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1993 00:04:02 GMT Date: 1993-03-13T00:04:02+00:00 List-Id: In article <1993Mar12.161548.6286@evb.com> pole@evb.com (Tom Pole) writes: [stuff deleted] > >The point is that these problems were known to be the major culprits >in the "software crises" and Ada was supposed to solve them. > Ada was to provide a _common language_ for the systems in its problem domain. In 1973 or thereabouts, there were anywhere from 200-1000 different languages in use around DoD (I guess nobody knew for sure). A common language is surely one useful component of a solution to the "software crisis". Only one. Anyone who said or thought Ada, by itself, would solve anything but the language Babel, was either a fool or a liar. There was a lot of Ada hype in the early days; my impression at the time was that much of the hype was produced by the "training terrorists" of the day. I know of _nobody_ with enough education and honesty to distinguish between a programming language and methodologies, management smarts, contracting smarts, etc., who promised that Ada would be a panacea. Surely nobody believes that of _any_ mere programming language nowadays... Mike Feldman