From: csampson@cod.nosc.mil (Charles H. Sampson)
Subject: Re: Elaboration_check For Instantiations
Date: 1997/10/30
Date: 1997-10-30T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <1997Oct30.183054.14961@nosc.mil> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 345774b3.1434102@santaclara01.news.internex.net
In article <345774b3.1434102@santaclara01.news.internex.net>,
Tom Moran <tmoran@bix.com> wrote:
>>> never been happy as a programmer when a compiler says, "I'm smarter
>>> than you are and I'm not going to allow you to do what you want."
>
>>This is the argument many C programmers use against Ada. Those that
>>really understand C AND never make mistakes write working programs.
> Unless the compiler is buggy, the fact it won't allow something the
>programmer wrote is proof the programmer either did not understand the
>language or made a mistake writing it. So the compiler has
>demonstrated that it is, in fact, smarter than the programmer. ;)
No, rather than saying that the compiler is buggy you have to an-
swer the question, "Is it a bug or is it a feature?" There have been
compilers for other languages that tried to outguess the programmer in
the use of some features, either prohibiting suspicious but legal uses
or at least warning about them. Fortunately, this kind of implementa-
tion is close to impossible for Ada compilers because the language is so
well defined. For other languages the implementers could justify disal-
lowing something by saying it's not in their version of the language.
(Hence, no bug.)
Charlie
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~1997-10-30 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 20+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1997-10-23 0:00 Elaboration_check For Instantiations Charles H. Sampson
1997-10-23 0:00 ` Charles H. Sampson
1997-10-24 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1997-10-24 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-10-27 0:00 ` Charles H. Sampson
1997-10-27 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-10-28 0:00 ` Charles H. Sampson
1997-10-28 0:00 ` Keith Thompson
1997-10-28 0:00 ` Charles H. Sampson
1997-10-29 0:00 ` W. Wesley Groleau x4923
1997-10-29 0:00 ` Tom Moran
1997-10-30 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
1997-10-30 0:00 ` Charles H. Sampson
[not found] ` <345774b3.1434102@santaclara01.news.internex.net>
1997-10-30 0:00 ` Charles H. Sampson [this message]
1997-10-29 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-10-29 0:00 ` Charles H. Sampson
1997-10-29 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-10-27 0:00 ` Charles H. Sampson
1997-10-27 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-10-24 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
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