Re: Any research putting c above ada?

[terryc@tenberry.com (Terry Colligan)]

"Larry J. Elmore" <ljelmore@montana.campus.mci.net> wrote:

>Terry Colligan <terryc@tenberry.com> wrote in article
><33636746.328095140@client.ne.news.psi.net>...
>> Steve Jones - JON <jon@hpodid2.eurocontrol.fr> wrote:
>> 
>> >haggedk1@ulysses.jhuapl.edu (CubanPete) writes:
>> >
>> >[snip]
>> >> Come on now Phil.  There is no language that produces software that
>> >> works "more right" than another.  Software is either right or it is
>> >> not.   Ada may have a great debugger but VMS types will argue all day
>
>The fact is that most Ada implementations don't need (or have) "great"
>debuggers because a _lot_ less debugging is needed compared to C/C++. The
>bugs are hardly ever as obscure and difficult to find as with C/C++.

 <snip>

>> >In C assigning to an unitialised pointer will cause either a crash or
>> >wild behaviour and never tell you, in Ada it will crash and tell you
>why.
>> 
>>   A checking C environment will stop and tell you, as well.  Just
>>   because most C environments don't do much checking doesn't mean it
>>   can't be done.  Any assignment using an uninitialized pointer in our
>>   InstantC incremental environment will tell you nicely that you have
>>   just tried to use an uninitialized pointer.
>
>Sure, it can be done. Just flip through any programming magazine like DDJ
>or something similar and just _count_ how many (expensive) tools and
>packages there are to catch all kinds of _extremely common_ C/C++ bugs.
>It's better to use a language that helps one avoid the bugs in the first
>place...

  Most of us don't have a choice as to the language that we use --
  or if we did, we made that choice long ago, and now have 400,000
  lines of investment tying us to the choice we made.

  It may well be that Ada is more effective at producing bug-reduced
  code than is C (the stories are impressive!), but I'm not is a
  position to use Ada, so it's kind of like saying that sex
  with Claudia Sheiffer is better than with your wife -- it may be
  true, but it doesn't do you a lot of good! ;-)

>>   I am not offering any data or opinion about Ada vs C, since I don't
>>   use Ada -- I'm just saying C can be made pretty safe, if you choose
>>   to.
>
>With how many hundreds of dollars of add-on tools?

  Who cares, if the problems can be solved?  All of the tools are
  *very* cheap, compared to the price of programmers.

>Assembly language can be just as safe with a suitably highly-skilled,
>highly-disciplined programmer. 

  Actually, probably not.  But even if it were true, there are no
  tools available to make assembly language safer, while there are
  for C.

>The point is that it is easier for the
>average, run-of-the-mill programmer to write higher-quality code with Ada
>than with C. Code that works right the first time.

  It might be true, but so far the average consumer of C is worried
  about other things, particularly available tools, compatability,
  performance, etc.

  When 1) C programmers' managers make quality the most important
  issue and 2) Ada is widely believed to be more effective at quality,
  the C community will add more Ada-like features to C.

  In the meantime, if people would like a nice, safe, checking C
  environment, I know where they can get a great one!

---------------------------------------------------------
Terry Colligan, President             terryc@tenberry.com
Tenberry Software, Inc.           http://www.tenberry.com

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