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,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 10.224.137.67 with SMTP id v3mr3431613qat.0.1379715509786; Fri, 20 Sep 2013 15:18:29 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.49.99.37 with SMTP id en5mr190379qeb.8.1379715509760; Fri, 20 Sep 2013 15:18:29 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.glorb.com!d5no1305882qap.0!news-out.google.com!gv3ni775qab.0!nntp.google.com!d5no1305876qap.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 15:18:29 -0700 (PDT) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=107.213.86.126; posting-account=agWbfAoAAACsmNLVDqyXMIhxJ5lWdw6W NNTP-Posting-Host: 107.213.86.126 User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <2f813569-5ff8-4c20-a5ab-8538e6514906@googlegroups.com> Subject: Anti-Ada FUD (rant) From: krfkeith@gmail.com Injection-Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 22:18:29 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:17209 Date: 2013-09-20T15:18:29-07:00 List-Id: Sigh, I'm sure this is old hat you guys, but I need to get this off my chest. I'm= so sick of the smug ignorance of myopia of self-styled "hackers" that noth= ing exists besides C, Perl/Python, and Linux, and that there is no market b= esides pandering to neckbeards. This kind of attitude is exemplified nowher= e "better" than the jargon file. For example, read the page on Ada! http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/a/Ada.html Hackers are nearly unanimous in observing that, technically, it is precisel= y what one might expect given that kind of endorsement by fiat; designed by= committee, crockish, difficult to use, and overall a disastrous, multi-bil= lion-dollar boondoggle (one common description is "The PL/I of the 1980s").= Hackers find Ada's exception-handling and inter-process communication feat= ures particularly hilarious. =20 In the first sentence (before the quote), it mentions that Ada was made man= datory by the DoD. As if having a standard for extremely mission critical t= hings (like, oh, I dunno, national security) is somehow a bad thing? Anyway= , continuing on, we learn that "hackers" dislike Ada. What the hell is a "h= acker," and more to the point, why should I care what the hell they think? = And yes, I realize it means "hacker" in the good sense (as opposed to crack= er), but I still think it's a stupid statement. Oh, a language was rigorous= ly developed by a team of experts and professionals to fit a very specific = need with a particularly large level of security and predictability? Yeah, = well, some cheetos-dust covered "hacker" behind a computer screen thinks it= sucks so whatever. What on earth is endorsement by fiat even supposed to m= e? Is there any other kind of fiat? Does the author even know what the word= fiat means?=20 I take issue with the claim that Ada was "designed by committee," because i= t wasn't. Several groups put in bids for what the DoD was looking for, and = chose a language that we know as Ada from among them. But regardless, what = exactly is *wrong* with so-called design by committee, besides its morphing= into a snarl word? I see this used all the time, sometimes even when it ma= kes no sense, without any explanation as to why it is bad. And yes, while I= agree that committees can lack vision, so can individuals. Conversely, ind= ividuals can also lack man power, experience, sufficiently wide knowledge a= nd aptitude, and ability to see beyond one's own mistakes and eccentricitie= s.=20 Difficult to use is entirely a matter of opinion. Is C or C++ *easy* to use= ?? Besides that even, judging a language by the standards of another is abs= urdly unfair. I wouldn't say, I dunno, 68000 assembly code is particularly = easy (though it is rather nice as assembly goes) but that doesn't mean it s= ucks. It serves an entirely different purpose than does high level language= s. The primary goal of Ada is to prevent the kinds of bugs and security iss= ues that plague code of other languages, like C. I have to ask myself a lot= , why, in 2013, something as moronic as buffer overflows are still a proble= m. And yes, proper typing systems take just a little bit longer to type. I'= m sorry it's such a burden to you to have to take precautions to write code= that isn't riddled with bugs and security holes.=20 Disastrous? By what metric? The DoD seems to be doing fine. Ever taken an a= irplane flight and not crashed? Well, Ada seems to be doing well there as w= ell! Again, the arrogance is stunning. "This thing doesn't meet my standard= s of what constitutes good, therefore it isn't." The part about exception handling and IPC is particularly baffling. How exa= ctly is it hilarious? Right, because C is so great in that regard right? All in all, I'm just so sick of the smarmy types of people who call themsel= ves hackers. I've seen them attack everything that isn't C and UNIX. For ex= ample, DEC's VMS sucks(ed) because it isn't a "hackers' OS." Okay, and what= on earth does THAT mean? Did you know that programmers exist outside of th= ose who think C is the second coming of Christ and that UNIX was a perfect = design incapable of being improved? Shocking, isn't it! Did you also know t= hat some stuff, like, oh I dunno, medical equipment or thinks that prevent = us from dying like avionics computers can't deal with the imbecile coding s= tyles employed by far too many C programmers? It just gets under my skin th= at people are so oblivious to the fact that not all programming is serving = up web pages or video games.