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-Thread: 103376,751d508677a5add1 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,UTF8 Path: g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!feeder.news-service.com!feeder.erje.net!news.osn.de!diablo1.news.osn.de!noris.net!newsfeed.arcor.de!newsspool2.arcor-online.net!news.arcor.de.POSTED!not-for-mail Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2010 00:51:12 +0200 From: Georg Bauhaus User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.4) Gecko/20100608 Thunderbird/3.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: ADA made me hate programming References: <8f469661-370c-4484-82d8-f1b365455e0f@w12g2000yqj.googlegroups.com> <7865d$4c3125c1$433a4efa$24658@API-DIGITAL.COM> <746c$4c3253ae$433a4efa$25085@API-DIGITAL.COM> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-ID: <4c33b361$0$7653$9b4e6d93@newsspool1.arcor-online.net> Organization: Arcor NNTP-Posting-Date: 07 Jul 2010 00:51:13 CEST NNTP-Posting-Host: 03d1bb4e.newsspool1.arcor-online.net X-Trace: DXC=_=k3h3]5]SBk:C4l9A;OcOic==]BZ:afN4Fo<]lROoRA<`=YMgDjhgBMBHNc?NkSHNPCY\c7>ejVHY6dc>QJWg9N=kZkZi>ZD;O X-Complaints-To: usenet-abuse@arcor.de Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:12241 Date: 2010-07-07T00:51:13+02:00 List-Id: On 7/6/10 9:55 PM, anon@att.net wrote: > An example. is a few days ago I said Algol was not used to as > a base for Ada, because the design team examine Algol and decided to > decline the use of Algol. My reference was a report that is on Adaic.com > the main reference for Ada. Yes, the reference explicitly talks about possible bases for the new language. In close vicinity, there is more on how the evaluations of the existing languages including ALGOL60 were performed against the requirements of the new language later to become Ada. The HOLWG statement of work for each contractor to do so "specified that for each language requirement, the contractor was to determine the degree of compliance of each of the candidate languages, to comment on the feasibility of modifying the language to bring it into compliance, and to identify features in excess of the requirements." That's three criteria for each language L against the requirements, - L's degree of compliance with R, - can L be changed to meet R, - is L too much? The outcome of evaluations of existing languages had positives and negatives, the positives being that some languages could be used as a base, whereas others must dismissed as a base---where "base" is a defined term! From the same place: "``Base'' must be distinguished from languages influencing Ada." I read this as "base" has a very specific sense here and can easily be confused with "influence". The same text mentions that the influences on the new language have been manifold and are counted as contributing to the requirements document as well (Pascal mostly contributing syntax). A summary of the process was published by David Fisher, in Computer, March 1978, pp. 24-33, IEEE, reprinted in: Wasserman, Anthony I. (1980), http://lccn.loc.gov/80083087 He summarizes as follows : * No language satisfied the requirements so well that it could be adopted as a common language. * Several of the languages were sufficiently compatible with the technical requirements so that they could be modified to produce an acceptable language. All of the languages in this group are derivatives of Algol-68, Pascal, or PL/I. * Without exception, the evaluators found all the interim approved languages to be inappropriate as a basis for developing a common language. * It was the consensus of the evaluators that it is currently possible to produce a single language that would meet essentially all the requirements. Nevertheless, browsing Grau/Hill/Langmaack (1967): "Translation of ALGOL 60", I see many things that Ada seems to have adopted, if only because other languages and styles of programming had been influenced by it and have influenced Ada in turn. For the purpose of illustration, some quotes: "The presence of recursively defined syntactic structures in ALGOL..." "The method of the ``Klammergebirge''" [bracket mountains] versus the structural analogies in Ada '83 Rationale, 2.2 or the Ada Comb (Riehle). (Turning a pretty printed Ada text 90° counterclockwise shows the same shape as a Klammergebirge, even when the latter is introduced with parenthesized expressions; I understand that GNAT has a recursive descent parser.) ... So while ALGOL 60 has been dismissed as a "base" (defined term) on which to build Ada, my understanding of all this is that there is influence. The wikipedia article has always listed Algo68 as influential, and compares Ada and ALGOL60, see below. Certainly the contractors who did the evaluations know more? Are there still documents or reviews in the HOLWG/AJPO/... archives? I suspect there is a wealth of interesting information in the evaluation reports, I guess it might even supply for much of the work on new languages that seems so inevitable. > After that post the Wikipedia page on Ada was > altered to say the Algol influenced Ada only hours after I make the post. Which wikipedia page on Ada is this? I checked both the version history of the Ada entry in wikipedia and the Ada programming wikibook; the versions from the last two months all compare Ada to ALGOL60 by mentioning features that ALGOL60 did *not* have; the paragraph including "ALGOL60" shows no changes. > Was it someone on this board, I am not sure but it just proves that what > on Wikipedia can not be trusted. Wikipedia is almost like FOX News, except that citizens get a chance to say something about the news or its presentation when something demands it... :-)