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: fdb77,5f529c91be2ac930 X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,899fc98b2883af4a X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-05-16 15:32:00 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!enews.sgi.com!news.xtra.co.nz!53ab2750!not-for-mail From: "AG" Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.object,comp.lang.ada,comp.software-eng References: <9fa75d42.0304230424.10612b1a@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305090612.261d5a5c@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305091549.48b9c5d9@posting.google.com> <7507f79d.0305121629.5b8b7369@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305130543.60381450@posting.google.com> <254c16a.0305140549.3a87281b@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305141747.5680c577@posting.google.com> <3ec4b1c9$1@news.wineasy.se> Subject: Re: Quality systems (Was: Using Ada for device drivers? (Was: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died)) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 10:32:33 +1200 NNTP-Posting-Host: 219.88.60.103 X-Complaints-To: newsadmin@xtra.co.nz X-Trace: news.xtra.co.nz 1053124320 219.88.60.103 (Sat, 17 May 2003 10:32:00 NZST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 10:32:00 NZST Organization: Xtra Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:63964 comp.object:63584 comp.lang.ada:37414 comp.software-eng:19246 Date: 2003-05-17T10:32:33+12:00 List-Id: > "soft-eng" wrote: > > I don't agree that Ada is likely to be particularly useful > > for catching errors in a professional environment -- say 2-3% > > of the actual errors at best. If it's catching more than > > that, I don't see how you can have good people. Remember, those 2-3% just may account for, say, 50% of the effort. Let me give an example: I had once to track down a bug which manifested itself in a pop-up error screen telling the end-user that "Default coercion is not available" [imagine the amount of more or less sarcastic comments caused by that] Turned out that, way down in the call chain, one thing expected a number. The other was providing a string [That's the bug]. However, the run-time system insisted by default on doing the best it can converting from one to the other. So that worked. Until some set of inputs produced a string that could *not* be converted to a number and the thing keeled over and died. In fact, the authors of the string-producing module were quite good at what they did since that error happened very rarely under some very special and unforeseen circumstances. Can't blame them for missing it - everyone makes mistakes or fails to catch them. However, a strict (or even not-so-strict) type system would have prevented that problem from even making it past compile-time. Not to mention the actual field-release.