From: robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com
Subject: Re: should I be interested in ada?
Date: 1999/02/25
Date: 1999-02-25T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <7b3g0q$m3g$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 7b2j32$drp$2@plug.news.pipex.net
In article <7b2j32$drp$2@plug.news.pipex.net>,
"Nick Roberts" <Nick.Roberts@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
> But I would strongly contend that
> it would be highly naive to think that because one piece
> of code is five lines and another is one line, it must
> therefore be five times more complex (in terms of
> diffculty to read, difficulty to debug, etc.).
When you "strongly contend" something that is contrary
to general experience and data collected in the industry
(which shows that productivity is very closely connected
to lines of source code, and that higher level abstractions
do indeed reduce complexity from the points of view you
mention, you need something more than received wisdom from
personal communication with the oracle. You could appeal
to 50 years of personal experience, but even that would
be dubious in this case. You need to present some evidence.
This is after all an issue that is VERY well studied, and
for which there is lots of published data. You are
contesting this data. Fine, that's how we make progress in
science, but you need some evidence, or at the very least
some convincing reasoning.
I must say that the trading of examples here is very
effective in showing the power of Fortran 90 in these
areas!
> Less neat, certainly. But I think similar comments apply
> as to the previous example.
So let me get this straight.
You replace one neat line by several "less neat" lines, and
yet you still "strongly contend" [without evidence or even
reasoning, convincing or otherwise] that this makes no
difference in productivity, maintainability, or
readability.
If we follow this contention to its extreme, we may as well
all go back to programming in absolute machine language!
I assume that is absurd, but in the absence of any kind of
reasoning to back up the contention here, it is hard to see
how it does not apply in a very general manner.
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~1999-02-25 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 89+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1999-02-14 0:00 should I be interested in ada? Phillip Helbig
1999-02-15 0:00 ` Gautier
1999-02-15 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
1999-02-23 0:00 ` David Starner
1999-02-16 0:00 ` Ken Thomas
1999-02-17 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-18 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-18 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-18 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-19 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-19 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-19 0:00 ` William Clodius
1999-02-19 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-20 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-20 0:00 ` Steve Doiel
1999-02-20 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-22 0:00 ` dennison
1999-02-22 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-23 0:00 ` Robert I. Eachus
1999-02-24 0:00 ` White rabbit (was: should I be interested in ada?) dennison
1999-02-25 0:00 ` Alice books " JP Thornley
1999-02-25 0:00 ` Robert I. Eachus
1999-02-19 0:00 ` should I be interested in ada? dennison
1999-02-19 0:00 ` William Clodius
1999-02-19 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-19 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-20 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-22 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-19 0:00 ` Phillip Helbig
1999-02-18 0:00 ` Jerry Petrey
1999-02-18 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-18 0:00 ` Dan Nagle
1999-02-18 0:00 ` nabbasi
1999-02-19 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-19 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-19 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-19 0:00 ` William Clodius
1999-02-20 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-21 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-21 0:00 ` William Clodius
1999-02-22 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-19 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-21 0:00 ` William Clodius
1999-02-23 0:00 ` Robert I. Eachus
1999-02-19 0:00 ` Dan Nagle
1999-02-19 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-19 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-19 0:00 ` Dan Nagle
1999-02-23 0:00 ` Peter Hermann
1999-02-18 0:00 ` Joel Seidman
1999-02-18 0:00 ` fraser
1999-02-19 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1999-02-20 0:00 ` fraser
1999-02-18 0:00 ` William Clodius
1999-02-18 0:00 ` nabbasi
1999-02-18 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-18 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-19 0:00 ` William Clodius
1999-02-19 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-20 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-22 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-22 0:00 ` William Clodius
1999-02-23 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-23 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-22 0:00 ` William Clodius
1999-02-23 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-23 0:00 ` William Clodius
1999-02-25 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-25 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-23 0:00 ` Robert I. Eachus
1999-02-24 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-26 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1999-02-27 0:00 ` Semantic info pragmas (was: should I be interested in ada?) Nick Roberts
1999-03-01 0:00 ` Samuel Tardieu
1999-03-01 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1999-02-24 0:00 ` should I be interested in ada? William Clodius
1999-02-24 0:00 ` William Clodius
1999-02-25 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-25 0:00 ` robert_dewar [this message]
1999-02-26 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-18 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-18 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-18 0:00 ` William Clodius
1999-02-18 0:00 ` dennison
1999-02-20 0:00 ` Hartmut H. Schaefer
1999-02-20 0:00 ` bill
1999-02-21 0:00 ` dewar
1999-02-21 0:00 ` dewar
1999-02-22 0:00 ` dennison
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