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From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: net.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Professionalism
Message-ID: <304@opus.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Dec-85 05:13:51 EST
Article-I.D.: opus.304
Posted: Tue Dec 17 05:13:51 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Dec-85 00:49:11 EST
References: <851208185443.106615@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA>
Organization: NBI,Inc, Boulder CO
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

> ...I would  like to say some things in defense of Ed's efforts.  The need for
> professional software engineers is here.  There are a lot of areas where
> poor  software  could  be much more harmful than the recent problem with
> this  mailing  list.   Responsible  people are going to insist that this
> work  be done, and supervised, by professionals...

The objections to the "Ada professionalism" posting were not objections to
the idea that software should be built in a professional fashion, nor that
poor quality code can be harmful.  They objections concerned two apparent
misconceptions:

	- that constructing software in Ada is qualitatively different, to
	  an extent that requires Ada-specific solutions

	- that concerns of professionalism in programming can be addressed
	  by formal/bureaucratic/paperwork-oriented solutions

In particular, I think that the first misconception is the more dangerous.
To the extent that the Ada community allows or even encourages the idea
that it is qualitatively different from the rest of the software world,
that community is isolating itself to its own detriment.

>From a different view:  There is a LOT of critical software in existence
today.  A TINY (miniscule; insignificant!) amount of it is in Ada.
-- 
Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
   ...Are you making this up as you go along?