Re: How do I write directly to a memory address?

[Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de>]

On 08.02.11 17:48, Adam Beneschan wrote:
> On Feb 8, 2:03 am, Georg Bauhaus <rm-host.bauh...@maps.futureapps.de>
> wrote:
>> On 2/8/11 10:58 AM, Ludovic Brenta wrote:
>>
>>>> (c) by single case logic, Ada's type system has not prevented
>>>> deaths in Ariane 5 anyway.
>>
>>> Huh?
>>
>> You don't even know this?
> 
> Quoting Wikipedia: "As it was an unmanned flight, there were no
> victims".  What "deaths" are you referring to?  I think that's what
> Ludovic meant by "Huh?".

The C programmers vs the Ada programmers kind of deaths
that inevitably happen in those rocket functions that,
by the laws of the wrong language, have shown that failure
must ensue because we have seen it once. -- You know, they
did use Ada in that rocket and it exploded! said some authority
and therefore, by Palinian logic, anything other than Ada is
better and rockets should not explode above the heads of American
people. That's not what we pay our taxes for, for funding
a government compiler that makes rockets explode. -- But it
was a different rocket. -- Well, I think that if it happened
in another rocket, we should be happy that not both of
them have made people die.  -- They didn't use GNAT either. --
So you are saying that GNAT is not an Ada compiler?  They were
so proud to use Ada and then the rocket exploded. -- But
no one died in Ariane 5. It was unstaffed.  -- I think you
are dishonest to the American people.  They've got a right to
learn that using "in" mode parameters in preference over
passing copies can kill our astronauts.  -- Ariane 5 is a
European rocket. -- It lifts off in French Guiana.
That's very close to Florida, isn't it? --

This kind of death.  Of argument.  The birth of rhetoric.
Things are made up for the sake of argument. Which is why
I mixed several perfectly comparable rockets: they all
look the same, as we all can see.  Too much of this
happens in language comparisons.

It is very good to learn about traceable cases of the danger
inherent in some language, such as using mutable scalars
from the largest possible scope they can have inside
functions (parameters in C; better in Ada?).

I wish they were collected in some unbiased public wiki,
together with a kind of cost analysis, metaphorical or real,
of the observed effects.  Wouldn't this be a nice addition
to the Style Guide? A chapter on Bug Avoidance Techniques (BAT)?.

I bet Les Hatton would find this chapter to be in line with his
evaluation of style guides.