Re: Misconception about Ada?

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Robert Deininger]

On Sun, Feb 11, 2001 6:49 PM, Cesar Rabak <csrabak@uol.com.br> wrote:
>Eric Raymon is writting a book on-line and has a particular paragraph
>which seems to me execessively perfunctory about Ada.
>
>Do you think it is worth to discuss this with him?
>
>http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/taoup/chapter3.html
>
>The pertaining part is "Why Not C?"

I take it this is the part you don't like:

"The arguments against C and C++ apply with equal force to other
conventional compiled languages such as Pascal, Ada, Algol, PL/I, Fortran,
and compiled Basic dialects. Despite occasional heroic efforts such as the
Eiffel/Sather family, the differences between conventional languages remain
superficial when set against their basic design decision to leave memory
management to the programmer. None is clearly superior to C/C++, and none
are in significant use in the Unix or Windows worlds. Accordingly we will
not survey them here."

Knowing nothing more about this author than I learned by skimming the
chapter, I suspect it would be a waste of time to discuss Ada with him.  I
guess he doesn't have a clue about Ada, but he thinks he knows quite a bit.
 Throwing all these languages in the same basket is silly.

I guess Ada is not suitable for the sort of programming he cares about:

"In 1996 a widely-reported and plausible estimate of community sizes held
that for every Python hacker there were five Tcl hackers and twelve Perl
hackers. "

Speak up, Ada hackers!  

---------------------------
Robert Deininger
rdeininger@mindspring.com

Misconception about Ada?

[Cesar Rabak]

Eric Raymon is writting a book on-line and has a particular paragraph
which seems to me execessively perfunctory about Ada.

Do you think it is worth to discuss this with him?

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/taoup/chapter3.html

The pertaining part is "Why Not C?"

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[David Starner]

On 11 Feb 2001 18:30:30 -0500, Robert Deininger <rdeininger@mindspring.com> wrote:
>I take it this is the part you don't like:
>
>"The arguments against C and C++ apply with equal force to other
>conventional compiled languages such as Pascal, Ada, Algol, PL/I, Fortran,
>and compiled Basic dialects. Despite occasional heroic efforts such as the
>Eiffel/Sather family, the differences between conventional languages remain
>superficial when set against their basic design decision to leave memory
>management to the programmer. . .

My problem here is (a) he includes buffer overruns in memory management, 
which is not a problem for at least Pascal and Ada, and (b) Eiffel and
Sather are both garbage collected languages, which, with their other
features, means they don't leave memory management to the programmer
any more than Python or Perl do. 

>Knowing nothing more about this author than I learned by skimming the
>chapter, I suspect it would be a waste of time to discuss Ada with him.  

He's an author and primary editor of the Jargon file, which trashes Ada
pretty badly. I was actually surprised to find it treated this well, which
is why I didn't bother emailing him or posting something to cla about this.

>I guess Ada is not suitable for the sort of programming he cares about:
>
>"In 1996 a widely-reported and plausible estimate of community sizes held
>that for every Python hacker there were five Tcl hackers and twelve Perl
>hackers. "

Sigh. Of all the people, I would expect someone who's done as much 
programming in as many different languages as ESR to recognize that
different languages have different uses. 

-- 
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org
"I don't care if Bill personally has my name and reads my email and 
laughs at me. In fact, I'd be rather honored." - Joseph_Greg

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Preben Randhol]

On 11 Feb 2001 18:30:30 -0500, Robert Deininger wrote:
>Knowing nothing more about this author than I learned by skimming the
>chapter, I suspect it would be a waste of time to discuss Ada with him.  I
>guess he doesn't have a clue about Ada, but he thinks he knows quite a bit.
> Throwing all these languages in the same basket is silly.

It is the Open Source evangelist Eric Steven Raymond. But he does not
seem have the knowlegde he claims when it comes to computer languages.
If you look at the Jargon File you will find that he has less opinions
about Ada, but they seem all to be based on either Ada 83 or hear-say.
:-(

>I guess Ada is not suitable for the sort of programming he cares about:

Yes it is, but I believe he has not tried it. An Ada version of
fetchmail would not be a bad idea.

>"In 1996 a widely-reported and plausible estimate of community sizes held
>that for every Python hacker there were five Tcl hackers and twelve Perl
>hackers. "

Which does not say much. I mean there is no logic in the notion that the
majority is right. They seldom are...

>Speak up, Ada hackers!  

Which is another point. The hacker definition is hopeless in the sense
that all media use it for cracker, so people who do not know more than
what the media writes thinks linux and the like are done buy a bunch of
criminals :-( Anyway one can argue, from the definition of a hacker,
that a cracker is a hacker that is good at breaking into systems.

-- 
Preben Randhol ------------------- http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/ --
                 �For me, Ada95 puts back the joy in programming.�

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Cesar Rabak]

Robert Deininger wrote:
> 
[snipped]
> 
> I take it this is the part you don't like:
> 
> "The arguments against C and C++ apply with equal force to other
> conventional compiled languages such as Pascal, Ada, Algol, PL/I, Fortran,
> and compiled Basic dialects. Despite occasional heroic efforts such as the
> Eiffel/Sather family, the differences between conventional languages remain
> superficial when set against their basic design decision to leave memory
> management to the programmer. None is clearly superior to C/C++, and none
> are in significant use in the Unix or Windows worlds. Accordingly we will
> not survey them here."

Yes. This is the main. Also, the whole chapter seems to point that in
the author's opinion languages now are classifie{d,able} by having or
not "memmory management" (garbage collection). . .

> 
> Knowing nothing more about this author than I learned by skimming the
> chapter, I suspect it would be a waste of time to discuss Ada with him.  I
> guess he doesn't have a clue about Ada, but he thinks he knows quite a bit.

The reason I believe we should think of an accurate answer (if not to
influence the rewritting of the pertaining material) is that E. S.
Raymond is very influencial in the Open Software world. His "The
Cathedral and the Bazaar" is taken as the description of the open
software spirit.
 
>  Throwing all these languages in the same basket is silly.

I do agree! Perhaps we could try to summarize some arguments to
enlighten the author.

> 
> I guess Ada is not suitable for the sort of programming he cares about:
> 
> "In 1996 a widely-reported and plausible estimate of community sizes held
> that for every Python hacker there were five Tcl hackers and twelve Perl
> hackers. "

I have to disagree: the book he's writting is "The Art Of Unix
Programming".

We had (have?) a thread discussing the re-implementation of the bind
program in Ada. . .

> 
> Speak up, Ada hackers!

Seconded,

Cesar

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Cesar Rabak]

Preben Randhol wrote:

[snipped]

> >I guess Ada is not suitable for the sort of programming he cares about:
> 
> Yes it is, but I believe he has not tried it. An Ada version of
> fetchmail would not be a bad idea.

A similar idea as the bind discussed in another thread in this NG!

> 
> >"In 1996 a widely-reported and plausible estimate of community sizes held
> >that for every Python hacker there were five Tcl hackers and twelve Perl
> >hackers. "
> 
> Which does not say much. I mean there is no logic in the notion that the
> majority is right. They seldom are...
> 
> >Speak up, Ada hackers!
> 
> Which is another point. The hacker definition is hopeless in the sense
> that all media use it for cracker, so people who do not know more than
> what the media writes thinks linux and the like are done buy a bunch of
> criminals :-( Anyway one can argue, from the definition of a hacker,
> that a cracker is a hacker that is good at breaking into systems.

So would you agree, if we changed to: "Speak up, Ada practioners!"?

Cesar

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Preben Randhol]

On Sun, 11 Feb 2001 23:41:49 -0300, Cesar Rabak wrote:

>So would you agree, if we changed to: "Speak up, Ada practioners!"?

He he, what is wrong with programmers :-)

-- 
Preben Randhol ------------------- http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/ --
                 �For me, Ada95 puts back the joy in programming.�

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Tarjei T. Jensen]

Cesar Rabak wrote in message <3A872501.1186F238@uol.com.br>...
>Eric Raymon is writting a book on-line and has a particular paragraph
>which seems to me execessively perfunctory about Ada.
>
>Do you think it is worth to discuss this with him?
>
>http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/taoup/chapter3.html
>
>The pertaining part is "Why Not C?"

It is pretty useless. He probably believe that the verbosity of ada makes it
unsuitable. It is a lost cause.


Greetings,

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[gdemont]

> Do you think it is worth to discuss this with him?

Forget it. He has only programmed one sort of thing
with one language on one O.S. and has had a definitive
opinion about all the rest since 30 years...

G.


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Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <968qoj$f22@news.kvaerner.com>,
  "Tarjei T. Jensen" <tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.com> wrote:
>
> Cesar Rabak wrote in message <3A872501.1186F238@uol.com.br>...
> >Eric Raymon is writting a book on-line and has a particular paragraph
> >which seems to me execessively perfunctory about Ada.
> >
> >Do you think it is worth to discuss this with him?

> It is pretty useless. He probably believe that the verbosity of ada
> makes it unsuitable. It is a lost cause.

I already mentioned his jargon file trashing of Ada to him via email. He
pretty much ignored me. Given that I'd sent him other emails about such
mundane stuff as his feelings on the writings of Fredrick Brooks and the
outfit he was wearking at the Windows refund rally which did engender
nice replies, the silence on this one was deafening.

My advice to you if this annoys you: prove him wrong! Go write stuff
useful to the community in Ada. Make sure to call it "Free Software"
rather than "OpenSource" and release it under the GPL just to tick him
off. :-)

--
T.E.D.

http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html


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Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3A874CC4.DF7B4CE8@uol.com.br>,
  Cesar Rabak <csrabak@uol.com.br> wrote:
> Robert Deininger wrote:
> The reason I believe we should think of an accurate answer (if not to
> influence the rewritting of the pertaining material) is that E. S.
> Raymond is very influencial in the Open Software world. His "The
> Cathedral and the Bazaar" is taken as the description of the open
> software spirit.

I'd take that down a notch or two to "somewhat influential". The "very"
might have been apt a year or two ago, but he hasn't really done much of
use to the community in the last year, and memories are short on the
internet. I think nowdays a lot more people are looking back to RMS and
the FSF, and to all the big free software project leaders.

Anyway, I can tell you from experience that he isn't likely to even
listen to you.

--
T.E.D.

http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html


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Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <slrn98eeli.2cd.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no>,
  randhol+abuse@pvv.org (Preben Randhol) wrote:
> On 11 Feb 2001 18:30:30 -0500, Robert Deininger wrote:
> >Speak up, Ada hackers!
>
> Which is another point. The hacker definition is hopeless in the sense
> that all media use it for cracker, so people who do not know more than
> what the media writes thinks linux and the like are done buy a bunch
> of criminals :-( Anyway one can argue, from the definition of a
> hacker, that a cracker is a hacker that is good at breaking into
> systems.

I learned that term as more like someone who subscribes to the "just
make it work" philosophy. As such, it is not a kind term, or a term that
would describe most Ada enthusiasts.

I think this is the sense from the ninth definition in FOLDOC:
----
9. (University of Maryland, rare) A programmer who does not understand
proper programming techniques and principles and doesn't have a Computer
Science degree. Someone who just bangs on the keyboard until something
happens. For example, "This program is nothing but spaghetti code. It
must have been written by a hacker".
---

I did not attend Maryland, but I think I did pick it up at school
(Tulane). Is this common usage at other universities?

I also use the term "hack" in a similar perjorative sense. The fact that
a lot of C programmers use it in a non-perjorative sense always seemed
to me to be proof that C is emphasising the wrong things. :-)

--
T.E.D.

http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html


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Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Lao Xiao Hai]

We have to accept that there are some authors who produce serious works
and others whose contributions are, at best, lightweight.  It seems Mr.
Raymon is
not an authors to take seriously, particularly when he makes
pronouncements
about programming languages.

On the other hand, there are some serious authors who study and write
about
programming languages.   They do not all favor Ada, but they do tend to
treat it
fairly.  Here are four books  I have found to be fair in their treatment
of Ada.

Salus, Paul (Editor), Handbood of Programming Languages, Vol I, MacMillan
Technical
                                       Publishing, 1998,  ISBN
1-57870-009-4

Scott, Michael L.,  Programming Language Pragmatics,  Morgan Kaufmann
Publishers,
                                       San Francisco, CA ,  2000,  ISBN
1-55860-442-1

Sebesta, Robert W.,  Concepts of Programming Languages, Addison-Wesley,
1999, ISBN 0-2-1-38596-1

Wilson, Leslie B  and Clark, Robert G., Comparative Proramming Languages,
Third Edition,
                                 Addison-Wesley, 2001, ISBN 0-20171012-9

In addition, I am discovering more authors  willing to comment positively
on Ada.  Here is an
example from a book on Embedded Systems Programming:

             "Ada is also an object-oriented language, though it is
substantially different from C++. Ada
               was oringally design by the U.S. Department of Defense for
the development of mission-
               critical military software.  Despite being twice accepted
as an international standard
               (Ada83 and Ada95), it has not gained much of a foothhold
outside the defense and aerospace
               industries.  And it is losing ground there in recent
years.  This is unfortunate because the
               Ada language has many features that would simplify
embedded software development
               if used instead of C++."

               Barr, Michael, Programming Embedded Systems in C and C++,
O'Reilly, 1999,
                                              ISBN 1-56592-354-5,  page
10

Another example is the recent work on software testing by Bob Binder.
Binder takes seriously the
use of Ada in his selection of object-oriented languages.  He even has
some nice things to say about
it in his book.

              Binder, Robert V, Testing Object-Oriented Systems,
Addison-Wesley, 2000,
                                             ISBN 0-201-80938-9

It is unfortunate that publishers allow ignorant (at best uninformed)
people such as Raymon to
include such idiotic statements in their work.   However, this phenomenon
is not confined to
programming languages.    Each day I see, in editorial pages and other
published works, even
greater stupidity.    Consider the motion picture industry.   Hollywood
thrives on
distorting facts.  It makes for good entertainment even though it
persuades our children to
believe things that are patently false, even absurd.

Fortunately, there will continue to be some honest and scholarly works
available to those with
serious minds.    Mr. Raymon's work is simply another collection of
mispent effort that would
be more worthy of the paper recycling bin than the bookshelf if it were a
printed work.   Now,
where did I put that doggone bit bucket?

Richard Riehle

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cesar Rabak wrote:

> Eric Raymon is writting a book on-line and has a particular paragraph
> which seems to me execessively perfunctory about Ada.
>
> Do you think it is worth to discuss this with him?
>
> http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/taoup/chapter3.html
>
> The pertaining part is "Why Not C?"

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Preben Randhol]

On Mon, 12 Feb 2001 16:15:21 GMT, Ted Dennison wrote:
>
>I learned that term as more like someone who subscribes to the "just
>make it work" philosophy. As such, it is not a kind term, or a term that
>would describe most Ada enthusiasts.
>

Yes very good description :-)

[...]
>
>I did not attend Maryland, but I think I did pick it up at school
>(Tulane). Is this common usage at other universities?
>
>I also use the term "hack" in a similar perjorative sense. The fact that
>a lot of C programmers use it in a non-perjorative sense always seemed
>to me to be proof that C is emphasising the wrong things. :-)

I could not agree with you more :-)

-- 
Preben Randhol ------------------- http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/ --
                 �For me, Ada95 puts back the joy in programming.�

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Thierry Lelegard]

> We have to accept that there are some authors who produce serious works
> and others whose contributions are, at best, lightweight.  It seems Mr.
> Raymon is not an authors to take seriously, particularly when he makes
> pronouncements about programming languages.

Whether or not his pronouncements about programming languages are serious,
Eric Raymond is a respected guru in the GNU / Open Source / Free Software
community, like Richard Stallman and others.

This community has a substantial influence on the modern computer culture.
Negative opinions on Ada from this community may not kill the language but
it will not help anyway. So, if Eric Raymond makes wrong statements about
Ada, it is clearly worth trying to make him change his mind. But this
initiative should come from another respected guru.

____________________________________________________________________________

Thierry Lelegard, "The Jazzing Troll", Email: thierry.lelegard@canal-plus.fr
CANAL+ Technologies, 34 place Raoul Dautry, 75516 Paris Cedex 15, France
Tel: +33 1 71 71 54 30   Fax: +33 1 71 71 52 08   Mobile: +33 6 03 00 65 75
____________________________________________________________________________

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Cesar Rabak]

Preben Randhol wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 11 Feb 2001 23:41:49 -0300, Cesar Rabak wrote:
> 
> >So would you agree, if we changed to: "Speak up, Ada practioners!"?
> 
> He he, what is wrong with programmers :-)

Without any prejudice, please! But I think more people than just who
_program_ should be educated about the fine points of Ada. . .

How about advisors in Faculties, CTOs in organizations, etc. I think
"practioners" would have this semantic extension...

just my .019999...

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Brian Rogoff]

On Mon, 12 Feb 2001, Preben Randhol wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Feb 2001 16:15:21 GMT, Ted Dennison wrote:
> >I learned that term as more like someone who subscribes to the "just
> >make it work" philosophy. As such, it is not a kind term, or a term that
> >would describe most Ada enthusiasts.
> >
> 
> Yes very good description :-)

When I was an an undergrad it meant someone who got explored tunnels and 
buildings, often bypassing security. A computer hacker was someone who 
explored computers, and built things, it was pretty much positive. Here's
a .sig I've seen 

The hacker: someone who figured things out and made something cool happen.

and that conveys the spirit nicely I think. 

> >I did not attend Maryland, but I think I did pick it up at school
> >(Tulane). Is this common usage at other universities?
> >
> >I also use the term "hack" in a similar perjorative sense. The fact that
> >a lot of C programmers use it in a non-perjorative sense always seemed
> >to me to be proof that C is emphasising the wrong things. :-)
> 
> I could not agree with you more :-)

I think this attitude being displayed is actually harmful to Ada. I'd
rather that there was an abundance of Ada code, even if some of it was 
drek. I think Ada is an even better "hacking" (and I use this in the sense 
you seem to be using it, coding with little design) language than C, since 
Ada's safety measures allow you to hack away with less debugging effort. 

BTW, it's spelled "pejorative", and pronounced without that R too ;-).

-- Brian

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Laurent Guerby]

"Thierry Lelegard" <thierry.lelegard@canal-plus.fr> writes:
> [...] So, if Eric Raymond makes wrong statements about
> Ada, it is clearly worth trying to make him change his mind. But this
> initiative should come from another respected guru.

At least RMS and Miguel de Icaza have expressed very positive opinions
of Ada (and I heard RMS say "abomination" about C++).

I responded to ESR about the Jargon file, both in public forums
and by email, and never heard back.

<http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-08-21-006-04-NW-CY>

I doubt that ESR will update his Jargon File, even if other guru tell
him so.

-- 
Laurent Guerby <guerby@acm.org>

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Juergen Pfeifer]

>
> I responded to ESR about the Jargon file, both in public forums
> and by email, and never heard back.
>
> <http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-08-21-006-04-NW-CY>
>
> I doubt that ESR will update his Jargon File, even if other guru tell
> him so.
>
You have to understand that the jargon file is intended to be some kind of
fun and there is some extend of irony in it. Don't take it as a
enceclopedia.
Look what's written there about UNIX...

I see that Eric tries to find some arguments that sound reasonable but are
used simply to hide the fact that he only wants to talk about what he
believes he has some expertise.

Cheers
J�rgen

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[David Starner]

On Mon, 12 Feb 2001 15:36:33 GMT, gdemont@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>> Do you think it is worth to discuss this with him?
>
>Forget it. He has only programmed one sort of thing
>with one language on one O.S. and has had a definitive
>opinion about all the rest since 30 years...

I think it unfair to dismiss Eric S. Raymond like that. His name is
on a lot of Elisp code, several interpreters at the Retrocomputing
mueseum, fetchmail, and a Python-based compilation system for the Linux
kernel, right off the top of my head. So he has done many types of 
programms in several language, with the worst thing that can be said
is that they've all been on Un*x systems.

There is no need to badmouth someone, even when you think they are being
irrationally wrong. Whatever ESR has said about Ada doesn't automatically
invalid anything else he may have said or done.

-- 
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org
"I don't care if Bill personally has my name and reads my email and 
laughs at me. In fact, I'd be rather honored." - Joseph_Greg

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[sk]

>At least RMS and Miguel de Icaza have expressed very positive opinions
>of Ada (and I heard RMS say "abomination" about C++).

Could you provide references ? 

I am curious about comments by RMS (I am assuming you mean 
Stallman ?).

Thanks. 

Simon Knipe - sknipe@ktc.com

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <Pine.BSF.4.21.0102121155250.19870-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>,
Brian
Rogoff says...
>On Mon, 12 Feb 2001 16:15:21 GMT, Ted Dennison wrote:
>>
>I learned that term as more like someone who subscribes to the "just
>> >make it work" philosophy. As such, it is not a kind term, or a term that
>> >would describe most Ada enthusiasts.
>> >
..
>When I was an an undergrad it meant someone who got explored tunnels and
>buildings, often bypassing security. A computer hacker was someone who
>explored computers, and built things, it was pretty much positive. Here's

Interesting difference. I assume you picked this up from your Computer Science
department?

It also occurs to me that I had a freshman engineering chemistry professor from
some scandanavian country (old as dirt, and ornery as a mule) who used to throw
the term "hackers" at the class as an epithet all the time. I never did quite
figure out exactly what he was trying to imply, but perhaps that also
predisposed me against the term.

>...  I think Ada is an even better "hacking" (and I use this in the sense
>you seem to be using it, coding with little design) language than C, since
>Ada's safety measures allow you to hack away with less debugging effort.

*Nothing* saves the "hacker" (my sense), short of a transfer. :-) However, I'd
think Ada would be particularly annoying for them, as the typing system requires
a certain amount of thinking ahead in order to prevent you from painting
yourself into a corner. In fact, we have in the past heard from a "hacker" in
this very newsgroup who complained that this damn language won't let them just
write stuff without sitting down and thinking about what they are doing first. :-)




---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Robert Deininger]

On Sun, Feb 11, 2001 8:20 PM, Preben Randhol <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote:
>On 11 Feb 2001 18:30:30 -0500, Robert Deininger wrote:
>
>>Speak up, Ada hackers!  
>
>Which is another point. The hacker definition is hopeless in the sense
>that all media use it for cracker, so people who do not know more than
>what the media writes thinks linux and the like are done buy a bunch of
>criminals :-( Anyway one can argue, from the definition of a hacker,
>that a cracker is a hacker that is good at breaking into systems.

I wasn't thinking so much in terms of the media's use of "hacker".  To  me,
on some ill-specified scale of programming philosophy, "software engineer"
is near one end of the scale, and "hacker" is near the other.  If someone
says Ada isn't much of a hacker language, I might tend to agree.

If this guy writes a book by, of, and for hackers, I won't want a copy.


---------------------------
Robert Deininger
rdeininger@mindspring.com

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Brian Rogoff]

On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Ted Dennison wrote:
> In article <Pine.BSF.4.21.0102121155250.19870-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>,
> Brian Rogoff says...
> >When I was an an undergrad it meant someone who got explored tunnels and
> >buildings, often bypassing security. A computer hacker was someone who
> >explored computers, and built things, it was pretty much positive. Here's
> 
> Interesting difference. I assume you picked this up from your Computer Science
> department?

I was a Math guy. Hacking was part of the school's history and culture. Of 
course, there was a fictional Alyssa P. Hacker in the undergrad CS textbook 
and she was smarter than Ben Bitdiddle (who was a low level kind of guy) 
so I guess it's better to be a (Lisp) hacker than a bit diddler. 

> >...  I think Ada is an even better "hacking" (and I use this in the sense
> >you seem to be using it, coding with little design) language than C, since
> >Ada's safety measures allow you to hack away with less debugging effort.
> 
> *Nothing* saves the "hacker" (my sense), short of a transfer. :-) However, I'd
> think Ada would be particularly annoying for them, as the typing system requires
> a certain amount of thinking ahead in order to prevent you from painting
> yourself into a corner.

Ever play speed chess? It's rather different from a regular chess game
which is rather different than postal chess. I would argue that "typeful" 
programming is even more valuable in rapid development. Once you've got
the basics of Ada down, it's pretty fast to write since you don't debug as 
much as in C. 

> In fact, we have in the past heard from a "hacker" in

Prototyping, and rapid development doesn't mean "absolutely no" design. 
Prototyping, rapid development, etc. in Ada is still typeful. When you
make sweeping changes in Ada code the type checking saves you a lot of
work. I think there are usually better languages for this, but if we
compare with C and C++ my experience is that programmer "velocity" in Ada 
can be greater.

-- Brian

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <Pine.BSF.4.21.0102130844300.1575-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>,
Brian
Rogoff says...
>
>On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Ted Dennison wrote:
>> Interesting
difference. I assume you picked this up from your Computer
>> Science
department?
>
>I was a Math guy. Hacking was part of the school's history and
culture. Of

Ahh. So we are still back to the possiblity that the terminology
difference
stems from a CS vs. non-CS background. I was hoping to hear from CS
people who
learned it as a postitive term, or perhaps non-CS people who
didn't.

>Ever play speed chess? It's rather different from a regular chess
game

Actually, the way I play chess is an excellent example. You can consider
me sort
of a "chess hacker", in my sense of the word "hacker". I play each move
as its
own game, with no overriding plan (and no idea how to make one). As a
result,
I'm incapable of beating anyone who's any good. In particular:
  o  I
walk right into traps.
  o  My position after the first few moves is always a
complete mess.
  o  I take forever to perform a move.
  o  For someone who knows
what they are doing, I'm no fun to play with.

>programming is even more
valuable in rapid development. Once you've got
>the basics of Ada down, it's
pretty fast to write since you don't debug as
>much as in C.

I'd agree with
that. However, even for "rapid development", you have to sit down
first and
figure out what you are trying to do and roughly how you want to try
to get
there. If you just sit down at a GUI-builder and start throwing controls
up on
the screen, you'll take 3 times a long to get anywhere, and it probably
won't be
a pleasant place when you get there.



---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Mark Carroll]

In article <gHei6.86$a4.713@www.newsranger.com>,
Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
(snip)
>Ahh. So we are still back to the possiblity that the terminology
>difference
>stems from a CS vs. non-CS background. I was hoping to hear from CS
>people who
>learned it as a postitive term, or perhaps non-CS people who
>didn't.
(snip)

I'm a CS person who learned 'hacker' as a positive term, FWIW.

-- Mark

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Brian Rogoff]

On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Ted Dennison wrote:

> In article <Pine.BSF.4.21.0102130844300.1575-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>,
> Brian
> Rogoff says...
> >
> >On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Ted Dennison wrote:
> >> Interesting
> difference. I assume you picked this up from your Computer
> >> Science
> department?
> >
> >I was a Math guy. Hacking was part of the school's history and
> culture. Of
> 
> Ahh. So we are still back to the possiblity that the terminology
> difference
> stems from a CS vs. non-CS background. 

Not really. "Computer hacker" was a positive term to me as an
undergrad. It was (not that much) later that the term became 
misused. Hacking also involved various practical jokes, but they 
had to have a certain elegance to be considered hacks; putting sugar 
in someone's gas tanks isn't a hack, but if you could get that someone's 
car undamaged onto the roof of a building that might qualify.

> >Ever play speed chess? It's rather different from a regular chess
> game
> 
> Actually, the way I play chess is an excellent example. You can consider
> me sort
> of a "chess hacker", in my sense of the word "hacker". 

Even people who are good are "reduced" in their ability to do in depth
strategic planing in, say, a 5 minute game. It's still lots of fun though. 

I play each move
> as its
> own game, with no overriding plan (and no idea how to make one). As a
> result,

Well, the problem you're describing is that you don't know how to play
chess at all, except that maybe you know the rules. This isn't analogous
at all to the rapid programming hacker, who may be an expert programmer
working under time pressure with an incomplete spec. 

 > I'm incapable of beating anyone who's any good. In particular:
>   o  I
> walk right into traps.
>   o  My position after the first few moves is always a
> complete mess.
>   o  I take forever to perform a move.

Why? If you don't know what you're doing you may as well move randomly :-)
I'd suggest picking up a book on the basic principles of chess, or just 
give up playing. I can't imagine it would be any fun playing if I didn't
have a very basic grasp of the "physics" of chess. My Go knowledge is 
unfortunately weak, and I don't know that I'll ever have the chance to
remedy that :-(.

> >programming is even more
> valuable in rapid development. Once you've got
> >the basics of Ada down, it's
> pretty fast to write since you don't debug as
> >much as in C.
> 
> I'd agree with
> that. However, even for "rapid development", you have to sit down
> first and
> figure out what you are trying to do and roughly how you want to try
> to get
> there. If you just sit down at a GUI-builder and start throwing controls
> up on
> the screen, you'll take 3 times a long to get anywhere, and it probably
> won't be
> a pleasant place when you get there.

People with lots of GUI experience are able to come up with decent GUIs 
for smallish apps without a lot of up front work. In many cases that's 
sufficient.

My main point is that Ada doesn't lose to C or C++ for hacking on account
of its strong typing, though the lack of libraries doesn't help.

-- Brian

Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <Pine.BSF.4.21.0102131213590.19846-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>,
Brian
Rogoff says...
>
>On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Ted Dennison wrote:
>
>> >Ever play
speed chess? It's rather different from a regular chess
>> game
>>
>> Actually,
the way I play chess is an excellent example. You can consider
>> me sort of a
"chess hacker", in my sense of the word "hacker".
..
>> I play each move as
its
>> own game, with no overriding plan (and no idea how to make one). As
a

>Well, the problem you're describing is that you don't know how to
play
>chess at all, except that maybe you know the rules. This isn't
analogous

*bing*bing**bing*. We have a winner! Perhaps it isn't analogous to
the term
"hacker" as you are used to it, but it is *perfectly* analogous to the
term as I
am used to it.


> > I'm incapable of beating anyone who's any good.
In particular:
>>   o  I
>> walk right into traps.
>>   o  My position after the
first few moves is always a
>> complete mess.
>>   o  I take forever to perform
a move.
>
>Why? If you don't know what you're doing you may as well move
randomly :-)
>I'd suggest picking up a book on the basic principles of chess, or
just
>give up playing. I can't imagine it would be any fun playing if I
didn't
>have a very basic grasp of the "physics" of chess. My Go knowledge
is
>unfortunately weak, and I don't know that I'll ever have the chance
to
>remedy that :-(.
>
>> >programming is even more
>> valuable in rapid
development. Once you've got
>> >the basics of Ada down, it's
>> pretty fast to
write since you don't debug as
>> >much as in C.
>>
>> I'd agree with
>> that.
However, even for "rapid development", you have to sit down
>> first and
>>
figure out what you are trying to do and roughly how you want to try
>> to
get
>> there. If you just sit down at a GUI-builder and start throwing
controls
>> up on
>> the screen, you'll take 3 times a long to get anywhere, and
it probably
>> won't be
>> a pleasant place when you get there.
>
>People with
lots of GUI experience are able to come up with decent GUIs
>for smallish apps
without a lot of up front work. In many cases that's
>sufficient.
>
>My main
point is that Ada doesn't lose to C or C++ for hacking on account
>of its strong
typing, though the lack of libraries doesn't help.
>
>-- Brian
>
>


---
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          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com