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Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!reading!minster!forsyth
From: forsyth@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: re: pro Ada argument?
Message-ID: <629649952.9223@minster.york.ac.uk>
Date: 14 Dec 89 14:45:55 GMT
References: <1149@pcsbst.UUCP>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

>>From horst@pcsbst.UUCP (horst)
>... Nobody answered the argument that I thought would be THE one
>in favor of Ada:

>  It's not the programmers that decide which language to use in the future

>In the European Market we expect to have laws in 1992 that resemble the
>American Laws of Product Responsibility. As far as I know, those can make
>an implementor responsible for any consequences of using an implementation
>language which is not considered the best choice. And there are strong
>signals that Ada will be the default 'best choice' for lawyers. Is this
>not true for the US?

Horst Kern reports a novel approach to software engineering: let the
lawyers do it.  What a good way of settling technical arguments!  (See
Jacques Ellul's `The Technological Society' [La Technique] for some interesting
consequences of similar ideas.)  Still, I suppose it was no more than
computer scientists deserved for having the temerity to write `expert systems' in Prolog
to analyse the British Nationality Act (1981).  I take it that EEC
legislators will suffer similar penalties if they produce poor `products'
of their own?  Stoppage of claret, perhaps?

Mind you, a good QC with some help (technical advice and an annotated copy
of all those AI-123 notes) should have lots of fun with Ichbiah in the witness box.
Perhaps we should book Leo McKern now?