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 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII X-Google-Thread: 103376,a37fec0028a63ae5 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Frode Tenneboe Subject: Re: Britannica on Ada Date: 2000/03/01 Message-ID: <951897836.859085@edh3>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 591665115 Cache-Post-Path: edh3!unknown@alne Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Organization: Ericsson Radar AS X-Cache: nntpcache 2.3.3 (see http://www.nntpcache.org/) Mime-Version: 1.0 User-Agent: tin/1.4.1-19991201 ("Polish") (UNIX) (SunOS/5.7 (sun4u)) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-03-01T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: David Botton wrote: : Just got my Britannica DVD 2000 and look what comes up: : "Ada is similar to Pascal but contains many additional features that are : convenient for the development of large-scale programs. Because of its : abundant features, however, ordinary users may feel awkward using Ada. Thus, : Ada has not been widely used in programs other than those for the Department : of Defense." This seems to be a very common misconception in encyclopediaes - look what the Jargon Lexicon has to say about Ada (http://sagan.earthspace.net/jargon/jargon_16.html#TAG8): "Ada /n./ A Pascal-descended language that has been made mandatory for Department of Defense software projects by the Pentagon. Hackers are nearly unanimous in observing that, technically, it is precisely what one might expect given that kind of endorsement by fiat; designed by committee, crockish, difficult to use, and overall a disastrous, multi-billion-dollar boondoggle (one common description is "The PL/I of the 1980s"). Hackers find Ada's exception-handling and inter-process communication features particularly hilarious. Ada Lovelace (the daughter of Lord Byron who became the world's first programmer while cooperating with Charles Babbage on the design of his mechanical computing engines in the mid-1800s) would almost certainly blanch at the use to which her name has latterly been put; the kindest thing that has been said about it is that there is probably a good small language screaming to get out from inside its vast, elephantine bulk. " Clearly - something has to be done. Has anyone got a nice, accurate resume which we can send to ill-informed editors? : I certainly find Ada easier then Java, C or C++ particularly when it comes : time to read some one else's code ;-) Or ones own code. :-) -Frode -- ^ Frode Tenneb� | email: ft@edh.ericsson.se ^ | Ericsson Radar AS. N-1788 Halden | | | Phone: +47 69 21 41 47 | Frode@IRC | | with Standard.Disclaimer; use Standard.Disclaimer; |