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=1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, MSGID_RANDY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1ea19776e3073a96 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Robert Dewar Subject: Re: C/C++ programmer giving Ada95 a chance -- writing an emulator. Date: 2000/04/01 Message-ID: <8c4up8$g0n$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 605240955 References: <38e148e2.5089627@news.shreve.net> <38e19656.17008608@news.shreve.net> <8bs49i$baq1@news.cis.okstate.edu> <8bsm6k$ejp$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8bt1vk$r0e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8bu375$2mh$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8buu98$j$1@nnrp1.deja.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x36.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 205.232.38.14 Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. X-Article-Creation-Date: Sat Apr 01 13:49:30 2000 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDrobert_dewar Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.61 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 2000-04-01T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <8buu98$j$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Jean-Marc Bourguet wrote: > In article <8bu375$2mh$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > Robert Dewar wrote: > > In article <8bt1vk$r0e$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > > Jean-Marc Bourguet wrote: > > > dewar> (I am one of the peculiar people who learned > > > dewar> most languages from their reference manuals, including > > COBOL > > > dewar> and Algol-68) > > > > > > I do not know COBOL, but learning Algol-68 from the RM does > > impress > > > me a lot. I can find my way in it, more or less easily, but I > > knew > > > a good part of the language before opening the RM. > > > > If you can find your way in the Algol-68 report, you are part > > of a VERY small group of people in the world :-) > > And now I'll wonder if I've understood anything in the report :-) Well the dynamic semantics is not so bad, I actually often find it much easier to read than the Ada RM (certainly than the Ada 95 RM). The static semantics is another matter. It is not that the w grammars are inpenetrable, it is that they are code, and completely uncommented code at that. I think a good set of comments would make the W grammars much more accessible. By the way, just so you know not everyone reacts like everyone else, Jack Schwartz had a student (sorry name escapes me now) who designed a language called GYVE for operating system building. He loved the original Algol-68 report, and provided a complete definition of GYVE in that style. Then the revised Algol-68 report came out, with the major discovery of predicates in the W grammars (that allow much clearer code by exploiting the idea of preconditions which parse to null if true, and a blind alley if false). The student was so impressed that he completely *rewrote* the entire definition in the thesis to use predicates :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.