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=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,a3783a25ab69482a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-11-01 07:35:29 PST Path: nntp.gmd.de!newsserver.jvnc.net!news.cac.psu.edu!news.pop.psu.edu!hudson.lm.com!godot.cc.duq.edu!news.duke.edu!news.mathworks.com!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!swiss.ans.net!gatech!paladin.american.edu!auvm!EUROCONTROL.DE!wel Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Message-ID: <9411011520.AA10413@eurocontrol.de> Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 16:20:06 +0100 Sender: Ada programming language From: Bob Wells #402 Subject: Re: Another One Bites the Dust! Date: 1994-11-01T16:20:06+01:00 List-Id: Robert Dewar writes > Prototyping an application that is eventually to be written in Ada by > using C or C++ is not uncommon, but it is almost always a bad idea. First > of all, C (or even Ada for that matter) is much too low a level language > for prototyping. If you are serious about prototpying you should be using > appropriate prototyping tools. > Sorry, I must have not been clear enough in my descriptions. Siemens AS builds such terminals for the Norwegan Army using C. They are production items. Sweden wished to have something similar, but with slightly different functionality. To speed up the development cycle, they agreed to conduct field tests using a modified version of the Norwegan, C based terminal. No prototyping of the application was done in the sense you imply in the above paragraph apart from the originsl development work carried out in SDL (Z.100). > Secondly, the phenonemon that was just reported in this thread is a danger, > I don't mean a danger to Ada, I mean a danger to the customer. The fact > that something works fine is just NOT GOOD ENOUGH. You would think that > people would realize this by now, but somehow the lesson never seems to > sink in. > Christ, can we get you on the quiz show Mastermind? Next contestant Robert Dewar, subject "The Bloody Obvious!" (Thanks Basil) Give them some credit. I'm sure they're not going to release, or the customer accept, something that is going to be calculating fire control orders without doing at least *some* testing! > The fact that something works gives no indication whatsoever of the quality > of the code, or its maintainability or long term reliability, or of the > life cycle costs that will be incurred in maintaining it. > What about when the "something" is just a slightly modified version of a production item which has been manufactured for several years? > Now of course Ada does not *guarantee* an improvement in these areas, but > it helps, and one certainly assumes that the reason that Ada is spec'ed (in > an environment where the choice exists) is that a judgment has been made that > these factors are important. It is probably also true in many environments > that with Ada it is easier than C to get a program working in the first place, > but that's not usually the primary justification for the use of Ada. > > So it seems quite short sighted to choose Ada, and then be seduced by > "but it's working fine now" observations. > Does this include the Norwegan Army who have been seduced for several years now with their working system? > Of course if circumstances have changed to affect the validity of the > original judgment to use Ada, that's fair enough. FOr example, if Ada > was sold on the basis "you'll never have a chance of getting it working > in C", then clearly the observation is significant, but I certainly hope > that Ada is NOT sold on such a transparently bogus basis, it is obviously > *possible* to get anything working in any language, even in assembler for > that matter. Why would anyone, independently go off and, in parallel with the Ada work, develop another system in C just to prove that the statement "you'll never have chance of getting it working in C" is wrong? Is this not the problem we now face? "Oh you don't want to use Ada. The compiler s are bad and very buggy. There are very few tools available, and besides when we did some benchtests in 198[1234] the generated code was very slow compared to th e equivalent FORTRAN code!" Sound familiar? @ -------- @ //// - ( G'day! ) @ (o o) -------- @ ----oOO--(_)--OOo-------------------------------------------------------- Bob Wells "The marvels of today's modern technology include the development of a soda can, when discarded will last forever ... and a $7,000 car which when properly cared for will rust out in two or three years." @ INTERNET: wel@eurocontrol.de CompuServe: 100272,3004 @ The Ada WWW Server is http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/ Team Ada @ For exciting Ada info enter 'finger wel@s4ecawel.eurocontrol.de'