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 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,b0123581076a0cf3 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-09-18 16:53:28 PST Path: bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!redstone.interpath.net!ddsw1!news.kei.com!MathWorks.Com!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!usenet.cis.ufl.edu!eng.ufl.edu!spool.mu.edu!agate!library.ucla.edu!csulb.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!netcomsv!annwfn!annwfn!merlin From: merlin@annwfn.com (Fred McCall) Subject: Re: Ada ad in Embedded Systems Programming stinks Date: Sat, 17 Sep 1994 08:07:25 -0400 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Message-ID: <85B31BE3FA6@annwfn.com> References: <353tqe$7pa@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> Organization: Is For People Who Don't Have Real Work X-Newsreader: Newsy 0.22 Date: 1994-09-17T08:07:25-04:00 List-Id: In <353tqe$7pa@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au Richard A. O'Keefe writes: >I think you have misunderstood the reason why it is essential to keep >checking the manual. I personally am sick and tired of C code "that >uses constructs that anybody can understand" but doesn't work. Example: >someone else's code I'm _still_ trying to fix after a couple of weeks >(ok, I'm not doing this full time) which, amongst other things, assumes >that (a) pointers and 'int's are the same size and (b) casting a pointer >to an int preserves all the bits. Obviously written by someone who has been ignoring the advice of people who know C (the phrase "All the world is not a VAX" emanating from the direction of Toronto comes to mind). Note that someone who does this isn't going to be helped by a language manual. They're going to need to know a bit more about their environment -- which to my mind is information they ought to know, anyway. >The point of checking the manual is not to become intimate with all kinds >of super-whizzy features that demonstrate your wizard-hood, but to learn >what kinds of things to _avoid_. Or better yet, to learn what 'misfeatures' to look for in other peoples' code. Personally, I learned more C by reading comp.lang.c than I got from the books. Would that newsgroups were still as informative as they used to be. Howevver, I think it is a valid issue that Ada programmers typically NEED to look in the language reference more often. This is an expected result of the language being 'pickier' about what it will let you do. -- "Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden --------------------------------------------------------------------------- merlin@annwfn.com -- I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.