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=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,fe82bd3a72926e1a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: fdb77,374e3d493349dc8f X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-10-19 17:51:34 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!not-for-mail From: Richard Riehle Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Language design by by committee ( was Re: Try J# ( was Re: J# is there )) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 17:54:29 -0700 Organization: AdaWorks Software Engineering Message-ID: <3BD0CB45.8C13FE33@adaworks.com> References: <9q223u$lap2j$1@ID-77397.news.dfncis.de> <46vast4p1qnb0e8bt59v4e8616hacvcgtd@4ax.com> <3BC5C49F.B1386292@ao_spam_nix.de> Reply-To: richard@adaworks.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 9e.fc.c4.44 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 20 Oct 2001 00:50:43 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:31166 comp.lang.ada:14947 Date: 2001-10-20T00:50:43+00:00 List-Id: Ted Dennison wrote: > In article , Dale Stanbrough > says... > > > >Israel Raj T wrote: > > > >> Tony Hoare was an early member of the design committee until he left > >> in disgust. In his ACM Turing Award lecture "The Emperor's Old Clothes > >> " he says just that. > > > >Tony Hoare left because he thought the language was way too big. > >Later on he wrote a foreward to a book in which he recanted this > >view, and hope people would have the opportunity to use Ada (I > >think he said "this fine language", but I can't be sure). > In a book by David Watt, Brian Wichmann, and William Findlay titled "Ada Language and Methodology" published in 1987 by Prentice-Hall, C. Anthony R. Hoare writes, of Ada, "... a new programming language: that it should be an aid in specification, description, and design of programs, as well as in the construction of reliable code. "This was one of the main aims in the design of the language which was later given the name Ada. As a result, the language incorporates many excellent structural features which have proved their value in many precursor languages ... "The combination of many complex features into a single language has led to an unfortunate delay in availability of production-quality implementations. But the long wait is coming to an end, and one can now look forward to a rapid and widespread improvement in programming practice, both from those who use the language and from those who study its concepts and structures ... " Note that these remarks were published long after the Turing Award Lecture. However, even in that lecture, Mr. Hoare's criticisms were directed less at the entire language and more at some specific features he felt were prone to risky programming practice. In particular, he was concerned about the inclusion of exception handling in a language intended for safety-critical software. In his view, if a language included built-in exception handling, programmers would be tempted to misuse it. That is, instead of writing robust code, they would too often rely on exception handling. His concerns, it seems, were prophetic. In the early days of Ada programming, and even today, we see exception handling being misued. This misuse is not exclusive to Ada. We too frequently see exceptions misused in programs written in Java and C++. Note that the SPARK Ada model completely eschews the Ada exception handling model in favor of a more rigorous assertion structure. Dr. Chapman can probably elucidate on that point, if anyone wants to know more about it. Richard Riehle