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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,28cd155693714664 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-06-18 05:49:50 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!HSNX.atgi.net!newsfeed.sjc.globix.net!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!151.164.30.35!cyclone.swbell.net!bos-service1.ext.raytheon.com!bos-service2.ext.raytheon.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3D0F2C6D.14B0380E@gbr.msd.ray.com> From: Steve O'Neill X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; HP-UX B.11.11 9000/785) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Faulty languages and Liability References: <3D0DE5E2.5010904@mail.com> <27085883.0206171100.7f6f0c5e@posting.google.com> <3D0E461A.8050207@mail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 08:49:49 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 192.199.125.46 X-Complaints-To: news@ext.ray.com X-Trace: bos-service2.ext.raytheon.com 1024404590 192.199.125.46 (Tue, 18 Jun 2002 08:49:50 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 08:49:50 EDT Organization: Raytheon Company Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:26230 Date: 2002-06-18T08:49:49-04:00 List-Id: Hyman Rosen wrote: > > Nope. That's why so many places adopted Java. They just got > tired of the risks of using Unchecked_Deallocation in their > Ada code. Nice thought. But I would bet lots of money that the primary reason that companies adopted Java was because that's what the rest of the herd was doing. Even more I would doubt that Unchecked_Anything was ever a consideration. The worker-bees saw it as the Next Great Thing and needed to have it on their resume to be viable next month. The manager-types were told that it was better than sliced bread - it was cheaper, better, safer, etc., etc. Some of that was likely true and some was just hype. How you use the tool will greatly effect your mileage (as with any tool). > > Coincidentally, from the currently-being-discussed Hoare paper of 1980 > > (discussing such security checking as array bounds checking): > > "In any respectible branch of engineering, failure to observe such > > elementary precautions would have long been against the law." > > I wonder why Ada compilers allow these checks to be turned off, then? Because 1) there was great fear that the performance penalties might be too great for some applications and 2) some folks believed that they could sufficiently test the software to the point that such checks were unnecessary. In my experience neither of these are valid (at least not since the early 80's).