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=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,b50bc6538a649497 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Nicolas Brunot Subject: Re: Ada student homework ? Date: 2000/11/08 Message-ID: <3A095953.4662EFB7@cadwin.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 691197805 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <3A02CED4.520C2768@brighton.ac.uk> <3A078B6F.D34B024B@erols.com> <8ua3m1$bru$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <3A0916BB.584C6C60@cadwin.com> <8ube4s$c2v$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <3A09416E.4C9BE1C8@cadwin.com> X-Accept-Language: fr Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: abuse@proxad.net X-Trace: nnrp2.proxad.net 973691251 212.27.47.81 (Wed, 08 Nov 2000 14:47:31 CET) Organization: Guest of ProXad - France MIME-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 14:47:31 CET Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-11-08T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: > In society in general, adults do not always act responsibly, > so age is no automatic guarantee. (Likewise, we should not > discriminate against younger people solely on the basis of > age.) And software people are no exception ... and Ada programmers even less ... The question of age is that the discrimination is to treat them like 5 years old kids, while a student is responsible for the way he wants to work. If you think you are asked for a homework, I find more tolerant not to answer, than being part of some Ada fanatics trying to rule the world, and giving them lessons about how they should work. > Some of us are not "scholars" in any sense of the word. Fortunately, and I hope being one of them > I am an Ada fan/zealot/fanatic, it is not just the language as > defined in the standard that attracts me, but the _spirit_ of > striving for correctness. I'm not software fan, I use Ada professionally to write software which unique goal should be satisfying the user, and not forget that goal to satisfy programmer's proud and theory correctness. In software industry, efficicency and user satisfaction should always prevail any consideration about theory and correctness. I'm quite sorry to see such an excellent language like Ada given bad reputation because some Ada programmers, (to be fair, this is also true for most languages, but those language are used in 99% of software industry) are fanatics to justify poor user satisfaction by unquestionable theory. The 'bit manipulation' thread is quite a good example ... There are a lot of example where using existing components or maintain old C algorithm is far more useful, efficient, and satisfying for the user than trying to rebuild the world because your theory find it more elegant, and forget that it's will not possible in given time and cost. Some of the best programmers I worked with, didn't study computers at school, and were so poorly interested in computers than they didn't have one at home. Believe it or not, they wrote software far better than very good programmers, because they were more concerned by the user, and were not polluted by the correctness of the theory. That's why they sometimes wrote things extremely useful and satisfying for the user, just because they didn't listen to theory fanatics who said : that's forbidden. > * If people choose to write Fortran they should do it honestly, > using a Fortran compiler. If it's their pleasure to do otherwise, I'm not sure to have the right to forbid it and put their honesty in question