Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Lao Xiao Hai <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com>]

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

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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?"