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,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 11232c,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid11232c,public X-Google-Thread: fdb77,5f529c91be2ac930 X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-04-26 07:54:35 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: softeng3456@netscape.net (soft-eng) Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.object,comp.lang.ada,misc.misc Subject: Re: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died (was): 64 bit addressing and OOP Date: 26 Apr 2003 07:54:35 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: <9fa75d42.0304260654.66aed72e@posting.google.com> References: <3EA04A1E.CAFC1FEF@adaworks.com> <9fa75d42.0304221126.7112b7d5@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0304230439.55d28e70@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0304240503.54dbc5d1@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0304250937.36a7897e@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.243.127.233 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1051368875 26005 127.0.0.1 (26 Apr 2003 14:54:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Apr 2003 14:54:35 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:62709 comp.object:62066 comp.lang.ada:36604 misc.misc:13714 Date: 2003-04-26T14:54:35+00:00 List-Id: "Chad R. Meiners" wrote in message news:... > "soft-eng" wrote in message > news:9fa75d42.0304250937.36a7897e@posting.google.com... > > > > I think you need some actual experience with programmers > > of different language. > > I have such experience; do you? > > > Then you will be able to > > make valid arguments on this. E.g. how much of > > the syntax of Java or VB the typical programmer > > knows. > > I have work on projects in both VB and Java. In both cases competent > programmers only knew subsets of the language's syntax. This subsetting did > not hamper the projects' success. > > > but most of the syntax > > is well understood by most programmers. > > Ha! Just the other day I ran into a competent programmer that never > realized that the {} defines a block in C that you can declare variables in. > Sure he used {}'s all the time, but he didn't understand their flexibility > until told him. Still he produced acceptable work when he had to work in C. > How many competent Java programmers don't know about the synchronize keyword > because they never have writen a multithreaded application? > > Also are you talking just about syntax or about both syntax and semantics? > If you are only concerned with syntax then we have an uninteresting > discussion, however, if you are interested in semantics, then almost all > programmers only know of subset of each programming language's syntax. I think you have to use common sense. When I say most programmers know most of the syntax/semantics, it still means most programmers might not know some of the syntax/semantics, and some programmers might not know much of the syntax/semantics. And we are comparing C vs Ada, so if you really want to be fair, you have to compare how well the average programmer knows the language details. (But I think the key phrase is "really want to be fair". Do you?)