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: 103376,763b126bf5276f4c X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news3.google.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Niklas Holsti Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Communications of ACM: Sir, Please Step Away from the ASR-33! Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 11:32:04 +0200 Organization: Tidorum Ltd Message-ID: <8ntp4kFo9qU1@mid.individual.net> References: <72b8fb96-2b5e-4ef8-8099-39361eeea853@glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com> <878vzbwa61.fsf@hugsarin.sparre-andersen.dk> <8ns4v1Fk2dU1@mid.individual.net> <2vc8dxz8lc3t$.frc39a6lzjvt.dlg@40tude.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net dgLl92+x0PSHN1VPfRsXlwRUXNxiBaxKSOcf6hHh+Kaw8xbya6 Cancel-Lock: sha1:QteB3uFmEFSNCCIFXRjqCQ6176o= User-Agent: Mozilla-Thunderbird 2.0.0.24 (X11/20100328) In-Reply-To: <2vc8dxz8lc3t$.frc39a6lzjvt.dlg@40tude.net> Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:17150 Date: 2010-12-28T11:32:04+02:00 List-Id: Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: > On Mon, 27 Dec 2010 20:41:36 +0200, Niklas Holsti wrote: > >> Such mixed 2D+text codes are already a reality for many programmers who >> use box-and-arrow diagrams with tools like LabView, Simulink, or any of >> the UML-based tools, combined with application-specific function-boxes >> written in some traditional textual language. These programmers may not >> even glance at the 1D-text source-code that the tools generate from the >> diagrams, much less attempt to understand the structure of this code. > > In one project the customer was adamant that all code must be written in > such a language (DiaDem, now owned NI. They also maintain LabView). He had > an idea that diagrams were easy to understand, so that he could modify them > by himself. > > As expected this ended in a disaster. The project was a real-size one. I > have no idea how many square meters the diagram was, but in the end we had > no other choice than to write a program, which processed the textual > descriptions of diagram. They were text files. So instead of editing square > kilometers of arrows, imagine how would you browse for anything in such a > thing! we patched these text files and let the tool add missing connections > and necessary blocks. Nobody ever looked at the blocks and arrows. Just to > load the mess to look at it took minutes. > > Fortunately at some point the customer dropped the requirement and we > gradually removed most of the mess. Now only 1% of code remains in DiaDem. This is a good description of a failure of diagram-based programming, thanks Dmitry. Nevertheless, there are also many examples of successful projects that use diagrams. Perhaps the DIAdem tool was not a good match for the application where it failed. The NI webpage http://www.ni.com/diadem/ describes DIAdem as a data-analysis tool, not a general programming tool. > Ada has nothing to fear from this side. I am not so sure. I remember attending an Ada conference (possibly Ada-Europe 2003) in which a speaker from Airbus appeared. I think he was expected to speak about how Ada was used at Airbus, and how good it was; instead, he told us that Airbus were moving to model-based development, using a synchronous modelling language, and that the hand-written Ada code was being replaced by automatically generated C code. I felt that this depressed the audience a good bit... -- Niklas Holsti Tidorum Ltd niklas holsti tidorum fi . @ .