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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00
	autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
Path: 
 border1.nntp.dca3.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca3.giganews.com!border4.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.bbs-scene.org!de-l.enfer-du-nord.net!feeder2.enfer-du-nord.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail
From: Bill Findlay <yaldnif.w@blueyonder.co.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Gnat 2013 is out!
Date: 31 May 2013 18:35:14 GMT
Message-ID: 
 <2060981844391650619.364511yaldnif.w-blueyonder.co.uk@news.individual.net>
References: <ko603g$dde$1@loke.gir.dk>
 <32d94173-533a-471e-95a0-abb73a6cdcc2@googlegroups.com>
 <CDCCC5DD.2F51A%yaldnif.w@blueyonder.co.uk>
 <0jmfq8pekf23kpe5ea0mki6tgtclisoi73@invalid.netcom.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Trace: individual.net 8x592OlH73W9a5rqJBkZfQuZx830mpl/clmm7Jrz8FlzLuK0sJ
Cancel-Lock: sha1:tvZZ8Rh/kkIqdxYINsyn0+Ee5AA=
User-Agent: NewsTap/4.0.1 (iPad)
X-Original-Bytes: 2463
Xref: number.nntp.dca.giganews.com comp.lang.ada:181779
Date: 2013-05-31T18:35:14+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 30 May 2013 09:01:17 +0100, Bill Findlay
> <yaldnif.w@blueyonder.co.uk> declaimed the following in comp.lang.ada:
> 
>> 
>> The worst 'program' I ever saw was 'written' in 'FORTRAN'.
>> Yes, those quotes are meant to scare you.
>> 
>> In the mid 80s a graduate student visiting Glasgow was sent to me for help.
>> A program, which she had brought with her from an even more ancient seat of
>> learning, would not work on the GU Computing Service computer.
> 
> 	<snip>
> 
>> Each subroutine had many parameters, the actual parameters of most calls
>> being being a selection of variables from the COMMON areas.
>> 
>> Variables in COMMON were also used directly.
>> Many times. Many, many times. Many times.
>> 
> 
> 	Ouch! While FORTRAN's pass-by-reference could be dangerous (the
> infamous [and maybe urban legend] non-constant constant in some early
> compilers) when the same actual is provided to multiple arguments,
> mixing COMMON and argument passing at the same time is something I never
> encountered.

The non-constant constant actually happened to me in my first real FORTRAN
program.

I called a routine that took a desired error parameter, which I wrote as
0.0;
not noticing that the same parameter was used to return an achieved error
estimate.

The following arithmetic IF malfunctioned bafflingly until I realised that
0.0 was being redefined!

-- 
Bill Findlay