Re: 4 beginner's questions on the PL Ada

[Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>]

Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> writes:

> 	And that description is rather meaningless to me...
>
> C-style for loops pretty much mandate breaking apart into parts
> as they ARE so generic.

Yes, I think it is clear by now that we prefer to describe things
in different ways.

> Code is IMPLEMENTATION...

OK, then what is not? Modelling? Drawing UML diagrams on
whiteboards? Or keeping it in your head, but still doing it in
stages?

Well, I don't do it in stages, I do everything at once, namely, when I
write code.

I do it bottom-up, like the Unix way of small, unique tools with a
common IF, and then you add complexity not by making a new tool,
but by combining those that you have.

Perhaps you do it top-down? I never did that, but then, I suspect
modelling and verification are motivated, at least to a higher
degree than with the bottom-up approach (in what case I think
modelling is a waste of time, and UML a joke).

On the whole, I don't like modelling. I think its importance is
exaggerated to the outmost. (But for commercial RT systems, that
cannot be easily patched (or revoked), and where human safety is
involved, I see the point of it.)

I don't prefer C++ to C, and I would only use Java on a sinking
ship.

The real time/concurrent model of real time and/or distributed
systems are a lot more appealing to me than the OO model, but I
know too little of it to say for sure. Most of all, I like C and
Lisp (which I don't consider FP any more than plain
procedural/imperative).

> Programming takes place outside of any language; one maps
> algorithms into the language specific syntax/semantics to
> implement the algorithm (program/recipe).

I agree that all programming is the same, only, again, I don't
map, to me it is all a mental-physical activity that has become
one (if it ever was separated).

Also, algorithms, as in CS - with hash tables, greedy traversal of
balanced search trees, all that stuff - that's exaggerated, and
often but an academic discipline. Programming is in general not
that advanced. I don't map algorithms into code. The little I
think, I think in code. The rest I write.

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573