Re: C is 'better' than Ada because...

[kdq@emoryi.jpl.nasa.gov (Kevin D. Quitt)]

On 18 Jul 96 07:12:10 GMT, nasser@apldbio.com (Nasser Abbasi) wrote:
>But on a side point, I dont think measuring productivity of 
>a programmer by lines of code makes any sense.

It certainly makes much less sense now than it used to, when good libraries
etc., weren't readily available.


>But for someone today to write code in assembler, unless there
>is a very good reason to, really do not make sense.

Agreed.  Bad assembler is worse than bad anything else, except microcode.  It
should be used only when necessary due to real-time constraints or hardware
idiosyncracies.


>So I assume you turn off the type checking feature of your compiler when
>you compile?  :)

No, it catches typos that would otherwise take another iteration to find.  I
also have it set to the highest levels, to catch those occasions when I
haven't been careful about casting variables.


>Well, there might be truth to this, but this is like throwing the baby
>with its bath water . 

People shouldn't not use those features just because there can be a problem.
But it *can* be a problem, especially when the programmer depends on the
compiler to catch everything, and then goes to a different compiler that
doesn't bother (and the programmer isn't equipped to find the problem).  I
don't mean to say that this is a common problem/


>Just becuase some programmers will not bother
>checking things too carefully befor submitting the code the compiler becuase
>they say , lets let the compiler tells use what's wrong, this do
>not mean that the whole idea of compilers that do strong checking are
>bad idea. 

I agree, and as I said, I usually invoke the strongest warning levels
available.


>This is also like saying that cars with strong breaks are bad
>idea, becuase some people will then speed up too much knowing that if they
>have to stop suddenly, the breaks will always stop the car in time, and
>they become sloopy drivers instead of slow carfull driver, so becuase of
>this we then should not build cars with strong breaks.

Actually, people with ABS brakes on their cars have been sued by people who
have rear-ended them.  After all, the argument goes, if the car in front
didn't have ABS brakes, it wouldn't have been hit.


>The more strict the compiler, the better it is. I want the compiler to
>be very picky. 

So do I.


>I like picky compilers and picky langauges, 

I agree with the former but not the latter.


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