Re: 30 Years

[agate!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!cs.utexas.edu!csc.ti.com!tilde.csc.ti.co m!mksol!mccall@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Fred J. McCall 575-5185)]

Pat Rogers (progers@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu) wrote:
: In article <9309081721.AA18798@manta.nosc.mil> mshapiro@manta.nosc.mil (Micha
el D Shapiro) writes:
: >
:   [reasonable stuff to this point]

: >I believe Ada's acceptance problem is that it requires a high level of
: >formality all the time.  It assumes every program must be written in
: >maintainable style.  People become uncomfortable when they must work at
: >that level of formality all the time.  So they reject Ada, even though
: >they probably should use it some of the time.
: >

:   I followed your discussion until this point.  What is it that
: _requires_ this style?  One can write a program in Ada in as "informal"
: a manner as desired.  One need not use encapsulation, abstraction, 
: even strong typing in Ada.  (Once you're good at it, it doesn't take much
: more time, though.)  I beleve people reject Ada out of ignorance and
: half-truths, not for technical reasons.

And this is the sort of remark that causes language flamewars and
leaves people wondering just why it is that *some* Ada advocates can't
justify their positions any better than by the old, traditional Usenet
approach of "either you agree with me or you are stupid and
ill-informed" -- which is pretty much what Mr Roger's statement
equates to.  Just the sort of approach to lead people to want to
reevaluate the use of languages that have worked just fine for them in
the past.  All it does is leave the propronent themself looking like
they have been fed on "ignorance and half-truths".

Is it *really* so hard to avoid these sorts of silly judgements?
In some groups, it seems that it is.

-- 
"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.