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=0.7 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 109fba,ef0074ec236ba6e3 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,ef0074ec236ba6e3 X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,b19fa62fdce575f9 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,ef0074ec236ba6e3 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 108717,ef0074ec236ba6e3 X-Google-Attributes: gid108717,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-12-05 07:53:07 PST Path: bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!pipex!uunet!newsgate.watson.ibm.com!watnews.watson.ibm.com!ncohen From: ncohen@watson.ibm.com (Norman H. Cohen) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.programming,comp.lang.c++,comp.object Subject: Re: Why don't large companies use Ada? Date: 5 Dec 1994 15:37:56 GMT Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center Distribution: world Message-ID: <3bvc4k$1lla@watnews1.watson.ibm.com> References: <3aa7jo$7j@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> <3bd06n$kbt@felix.seas.gwu.edu> <3bldlu$84r@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> <3bo402$23a@felix.seas.gwu.edu> Reply-To: ncohen@watson.ibm.com NNTP-Posting-Host: rios8.watson.ibm.com Xref: bga.com comp.lang.ada:8281 comp.lang.c:33398 comp.programming:5620 comp.lang.c++:39624 comp.object:9435 Date: 1994-12-05T15:37:56+00:00 List-Id: In article <3bo402$23a@felix.seas.gwu.edu>, mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes: |> In general I agree, and find that subtypes give the needed range checks |> without getting the programmer into type-compatibility stew, but there |> are these persistent "urban myths" about Fortran codes whose mangled |> dimension analysis sent space probes off the wrong way, etc. The urban myth about the space probe is not concerned with strong typing of data, but with what we could call strong typing of lexical elements! (The story is that the statement "DO 10 I = 1, 1000" got mistyped with a period in place of the comma--an error easily overlooked if your keypunch ribbon needs replacement--and got tokenized as "DO10I = 1.1000", a perfectly valid assignment to an implicitly declared variable DO10I. Two distinct language-design blunders--insignficant spaces and implicit declaration--conspired to hide this typo.) -- Norman H. Cohen ncohen@watson.ibm.com