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=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE, MSGID_SHORT autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!crdgw1!control!kassover From: kassover@control.crd.ge.com (David Kassover) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: problems/risks due to programming language Message-ID: <5479@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> Date: 22 Feb 90 20:28:34 GMT References: <5432@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <8103@hubcap.clemson.edu> <10811@june.cs.washington.edu> <5017@csv.viccol.edu.au> Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com Organization: Aule-Tek, Inc. List-Id: Wow, we are getting vicious, aren't we? In article pierson@encore.com (Dan L. Pierson) writes: >In article <5017@csv.viccol.edu.au> dougcc@csv.viccol.edu.au (Douglas Miller) writes: > Valid but utterly vacuous point, as ADA *was* designed to provide maximal > support for software engineering. I suppose its possible that another > (hidden?) design goal was to "have everything". So what? > > > Software engineering can be done in any language, including C. ... > >This bit of ADA mythology (or dogma) has also been made too many times >for me to remain silent. Yes, ADA did have a goal of maximal support >for the software engineering process. However other goals (and the ... >but I'm just plain tired of the line that ADA is equivalent to >software engineering because the DOD and those who base their careers >on it say so. >Internet: pierson@encore.com Ada vs C vs Pascal vs.... and mythology I think what I am going to write as follows are verifyable facts. I am not responsible for things not turning out as they were intended... Ada was designed by a committee (!!??? we can argue the merits of that elsewhere) which had certain aspects of the computer programming process that they wanted to address. Many of these aspects were based on real life experience (E.G. real-time programming, needing to acknowledge error conditions that make continuance undesirable) The committee succeeded in answering most of the desires, and where there was an irresolvable conflict, chose. Therefore, we have goto statements, no conditional compile, etc. Pascal was designed by an individual who had as his primary concern the production of a testbed from which to teach computer language design (or was it computer language compiler design. NOT THE SAME THING!) Furthermore, this individual was a proponent of a restrictive structured programming theory. Therefore, we have a rather incomplete language with some extremely annoying features. C, and Unix, were built, at least initially, by an individual who wanted to take a crack at building an operating system from scratch, on a more or less scrapped piece of hardware, while employed by an employer which was more or less liberal about such activities. Therefore we have a language, and OS, which is simple, and does some things very well indeed, but addresses other things not at all. Now, we're back to educated opinion. Ada, as implemented, did not achieve all it's goals. But I submit that it acheived many of them; that not all stated goals were even in the original mix; and that the set of goals was broader in scope than the goal sets of either C or Pascal. A long time ago, when I knew less than I do now, I said that Ada, as specified, was the embodiment of what a Pascal programmer thought a Cobol programmer ought to have at his disposal. I stand by that statement today. But still, for me, as a programmer working on a production job, Ada is the language of choice, all other things being equal (which they rarely are). For a personal programming job that is not likely to ever be touched by other than me, the language of choice is FORTRAN, simply because that is the first computer programming language I learned after BASIC (a very long time ago!), again all other things being equal. I would like to see this newsgroup return to discussions of Ada and implementations of Ada. Or maybe we could create a sub-newsgroup like comp.lang.flame?? 8-) Dave