Re: 'Cyclone', a safer C--reinventing the wheel

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

Those of us who have been around Ada and been fans of Ada for a very long
time have gotten very tired of listening to totally irrational criticisms of
the language over the years. We've heard every conceivable lame excuse for
why Ada can't be used for this-or-that application (back in the days of The
Mandate) and heard so much FUD scattered about concerning what an absolutely
horrible abomination Ada is, etc., etc., etc., that we have become a little
touchy. After years of listening to the FUD and lame excuses, we find it
highly ironic when all of a sudden someone working with languages that we
have known had major weaknesses that Ada could have fixed for them
"discovers" that if only they did something more like Ada, their software
would be more reliable and easier to build. (Duh!!!)

I don't think this comes out as a "My language is better than your
language!" war - except insofar as most of us here have known for a long
time that the type-checking, etc., that Ada provides makes for more reliable
code than one typically finds with C. We get to wondering why there's all
this resistance to using Ada but all kinds of enthusiasm for trying to
cobble onto something like C the very features that the C-fans have
criticised Ada for having at all. (IMHO, trying to cobble Ada-ish
techniques/features onto C amounts to polishing a turd, but that's another
story.) The C-fans have spent years trying to get us to understand that
strong typing "only gets in the way" and that Ada sucks because of its type
checking, etc. Now suddenly its a good idea?

I imagine those of us who have fought the same fights for years will
understand and sympathize with the "touchyness" some of us have in this
area. If you have not been through those wars, please be patient with our
ranting and raving. :-)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Wes Groleau" <wwgrol@sparc01.ftw.rsc.raytheon.com> wrote in message
news:3BFACB1B.DFF32727@sparc01.ftw.rsc.raytheon.com...
>
> I'm suggesting that sometimes people say some REALLY STUPID
> things against Ada and/or in favor of some other language.
> This causes fans of quality software to be a little more touchy
> about such statements, perhaps even misunderstanding them....
>