* Ada is a Good Thing
@ 1986-03-31 22:55 Steven Hand
0 siblings, 0 replies; only message in thread
From: Steven Hand @ 1986-03-31 22:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
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In article <8000002@ztivax.UUCP> david@ztivax.UUCP writes:
>I do not think Ada is significant nor a Good Thing for computer
>science in general for the following reasons:
>
>1) A "common programming language" is not significant. It is not even
>DESIRABLE. Do you think Ada is good for Avionics? [...] for database
>access? [...] for defining report layout? [...] for interactive screens?
>[...] for tabular computation? NO WAY.
Ada was designed for "imbedded systems"; but on the way they made a good
general-purpose language.
>(remember, these things have to be RELIABLE)
Reliable compared to what? I think Ada would be more reliable if it
was smaller, but it is more reliable than assembly language or even C.
>Besides, how long does it take YOU to become proficient in a language?
>One week? Two weeks max?
>[...] How then is this such a big deal?
The best response is to quote Gary Ford & Richard Weiner in their book,
"Modula-2: A Software Development Approach", (John Wiley) p.12 :
When one properly learns Ada, one is really learning
software engineering, as is the case with Modula-2.
...which, incidentally, I would like to see replace C in the small system
world.
>3) Do strongly typed languages REALLY help?
Oh, come on now! Strong typing, with well-defined type
conversion/coersion, is one of the best things for reliable, transportable
programs. Just look at all the arguments going on in net.lang.C about
what particular fragments of code mean.
>4) Software engineering is in its infancy, and will continue to be
>until something is REALLY discovered which reduces effort and bugs.
GOOD POINT. But we should use the best we've got right now.
>[...] force a standard (Ada) which is stone-age (because all
>currently used software technology is stone-age).
Should we stop writing software until a new, non-stone-age technique
gets invented? If you know of a currently-existing "answer", let me
know.
>Aguments?
The more the merrier; it keeps the net interesting.
Regards, Steve Hand
decvax!mcnc!ncsu!hand
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