Re: Use of "C/Ada" -- the C dialect of Ada

[firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth)]

In article <1892@opus.cs.mcgill.ca> clement@opus.UUCP (Clement Pellerin) writes:

>I'd be surprised if you could discipline a C programmer in such a short
>amount of time.

That might depend on the form of the discipline.

Scene: Lady Lovelace's Conversation and Discipline Parlour.  Red drapes,
red candles in numerous gold candelabra.  Massive white and gold wood
panelling, over which hang numerous pre-Raphaelite paintings of
greek youths clad only in beauty and sunlight.  Sitting on a high stool,
wearing black tights, spiked garter belt, and python, and wielding a
long whip, is Ada.

Enter a C hacker, cringing.

Hacker: Hello. I'm the chairperson of the C user group.

Ada cracks her whip.  Her pet marmoset climbs the drapes and perches
on the pelmet, chittering.

Ada: You slime! you scuzzball! You are already is serious trouble!  You
need discipline!!  MY kind of discipline!

Item one: you said "hello".  That is a request for rendezvous with a
parallel task.  You must WAIT for me to accept your hello, respond,
and decouple.  You cannot just go right on to the next statement.  Ten
lashes.

Item two: you said "I'm".  That is a contraction.  Contractions are
BAD, WRONG, UGLY and NOT ALLOWED.  Ten lashes.

Iten three: you said "chairperson".  THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A
CHAIRPERSON!  You are either a chairperson(M) or a chairperson(F).
You cannot omit the discriminant constraint when you declare yourself
a chairperson, because we cannot allocate storage without it.  Fifteen
lashes, and you must clean out the marmoset cage for a week.

Item four: you said "user group".  SYNTAX ERROR!  You must say "users'
group", since it is ILLEGAL to qualify one noun with another.  Ten
more lashes.

Item five: you said "group".  How big a group?  Is it a group range
0..100, a group range 0..1000, or what?  Unless you tell me the
maximum range of the group, how do you expect me to determine the
group base type?  How can you tell when the group has grown too
large for its implementation constraints?  For making a claim that
cannot be maintained through the life cycle, TWENTY lashes!

Now, have you been a bad person(M)?

Hacker: Yes, my lady.

Ada: A VERY bad person(M)?

Hacker: Yes, my lady.

Ada: And do you want to be punished?

Hacker: Yes, my lady.

Ada: With what delay?

Hacker: Without delay - (Ada cracks her whip again, warningly) - I mean,
with delay 0.0, if it please your ladyship.

Ada: (removing python)  Let the punishment begin!

[The above does not represent the views of the author, his stuffed
 animals, or anyone else.  I hope]