Re: Britannica on Ada

[jehamby@lightside.com]

In article <89j5un$j49$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote:

> I guess the even more "hilarious" exception handling in C++
> and Java must really give the hackers a good laugh :-)

I think there's a double standard at work here.  Who knows, perhaps
whoever wrote the original Ada entry *would* have had a good laugh at
the expense of C++ and Java.  "Real hackers use C", right?

From my limited experiences at DEFCON and other places where
self-proclaimed (as opposed to widely-acknowledged) hackers congregate,
it's obvious to me that rule #1 is to love what everyone else loves and
knock whatever everyone else is knocking.  So if everyone loves Linux,
you gotta love Linux.  If everyone's using C, you gotta use C.  If your
clique of friends likes C++, then you can use C++, but if your clique
hates C++, then you have to badmouth it.  "Java's slow", "Ada sucks",
"Windows blows", "VMS bites" (note that the first criticism is relative,
and the other three are meaningless.. that's on purpose, because that's
what I hear most often!).

What happened to judging languages on their own merits?  If you don't
like Ada, or C++, or Windows, then you're entitled to your opinions
(after all, *I* don't particularly like C++ or Windows!), but make sure
they're *your* opinions, and that they're not just nth-generation copies
of someone else's (possibly decades-old!) opinions.

-Jake


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