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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,cbb5b0d14f503195 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!news4.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local01.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.scarlet.biz!news.scarlet.biz.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 14:19:03 -0600 From: Ludovic Brenta Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Working with incompetent adaists / unsafe typing war story References: Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 21:17:14 +0100 Message-ID: <87zmkrqcs5.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> User-Agent: Gnus/5.110004 (No Gnus v0.4) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:9MoBFKiv2gK612OkKVeTNB3zh6w= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii NNTP-Posting-Host: 83.134.243.192 X-Trace: sv3-xVf6/Bu3kSyeyuDHW0TSyL+Zh9F8tXRcLPdC6coW4/2RWsSsK+lyGPav4G55ex16m8iQe9fsj4Vxijq!0I2HH9cInMysYWk0d8cIZnB0A2TnMUC71kTHYDCHHH2o9NbV1df2ZvZ0pFvR6/h+5Pax3elns80= X-Complaints-To: abuse@scarlet.be X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@scarlet.biz X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.32 Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:2919 Date: 2006-02-16T21:17:14+01:00 List-Id: Anonymous Coward writes: > I'd like to start with a war story: [...] > That story is just a sample of what I encounter too frequently in > the Ada workforce. It seems a /majority/ of ada developers have no > formal Ada training, and are primarily C developers who picked up > the Ada syntax on the job. Consequently, ada principles are lost, > and much of the ada code out there is only slightly safer than C > code (but still safer primarily because even a poor Ada developer > cannot write ambiguous code like they can in C). > > I've only worked on four or so workplace ada projects. The projects > with elaborate coding standards produced substantially better code, > but I think it was just chance that those projects also had Ada > enthusiasts who used private types, as the coding standard did > nothing to promote private typing. > > Do you folks encounter this frequently? And what's the solution? > Management can never appreciate the benefits of concepts like type > safety. Strong typing is incorrectly viewed as "academic" and > counter to progress. At Barco, I am part of a small team that has been using Ada for the past 8 years or so. I've been there for only two years myself. My colleagues are software engineers, not just coders. They all understand the power of type safety, and their desks have badges with the Countess' effigy and the motto: "In strong typing we trust - Ada - 1983 - 1995 - 2005". Last year, I wrote the new version of the coding standard, and everyone on the team has a culture of following it. So, my experience is quite exactly the opposite of yours, and as a consequence I'm a happy software engineer :) -- Ludovic Brenta.