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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f891f,9d58048b8113c00f X-Google-Attributes: gidf891f,public X-Google-Thread: 10261c,2e71cf22768a124d,start X-Google-Attributes: gid10261c,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,9d58048b8113c00f X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,2e71cf22768a124d,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: ucaa2385@alpha1.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de (Peter Hermann) Subject: Re: next "big" language?? (disagree) Date: 1996/06/04 Message-ID: <4p1l65$35qi@info4.rus.uni-stuttgart.de>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 158437627 references: <4p0fdd$4ml@news.atlantic.net> followup-to: comp.lang.pascal,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.misc organization: Comp.Center (RUS), U of Stuttgart, FRG newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal.misc,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-06-04T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Kurt Johmann (johmann@moal.com) wrote: : Programming languages are almost completely subjective, because the only I strongly disagree : minds apparently like that kind of enforced discipline (masochist types, : perhaps :-), but to my mind it was a build-your-own-straightjacket-and- : wear-it kind of approach to programming. the opposite is true: a professional is always thankful for every hint from the compiler or environment for potential errors. Working with languages of the past like Fortran or C is true masochism. I have worked on very large systems in Fortran (one was a half million source lines of code, the other 300_000 sloc) and we had to run the systems on every hardware brand. I can see no advantage to allow e.g. a memory overwrite error, by accident, or, e.g. an outside range value at run time or a wrong subroutine call due to bad parameter profile. When I decide, as a programmer, that a peculiar type or variable may have a value in the range from 1 to 9, can you please explain me why it should be useful to assign a value of 10 or 4711 or -1234? I will justify the value of that freedom in your favour: This has the big advantage that the typical Fortran, C, or C++ programmer being not immediately aware of an erroneous code is happy to catch the error all-day-long and when the day is done, he is proud to have found this bug and fully convinced to have fulfilled his work of the day. In contrast, a poor Ada programmer does not have this fun: a potential error is revealed at the moment of the very first compilation/execution. What a pity! No fun at all ;-( The product life cycle is shortened. No bug chasing. no extra lint steps, because its unfortunately in the language design. btw: Ada is the first useful (and even readable) Pascal with free compilers running on any platform -- Peter Hermann Tel:+49-711-685-3611 Fax:3758 ph@csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de Pfaffenwaldring 27, 70569 Stuttgart Uni Computeranwendungen Team Ada: "C'mon people let the world begin" (Paul McCartney)