Re: Lack of formal syntax undermines Ada

["(see below)" <yaldnif.w@blueyonder.co.uk>]

On 13/04/2008 12:51, in article 2os304dte7bu52t4ql3avpba946birp2r1@4ax.com,
"John McCabe" <john@nospam.assen.demon.co.uk.nospam> wrote:
... 
>>> and we were taught Pascal by the computing department using your book
>>> - Second Edition!
>> 
>> I know.
>> We've had this conversation here in c.l.a before, you know.
>> And, unlike me, you are too young to be having a "senior moment".
>> 8-)
> 
> What, me and you? Weird! It's been a long time since I was on here
> regularly though, so easily forgotten :-)

<http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ada/browse_thread/thread/3885b7fd6
6a1db28/e32a7e7bad2ebf54?lnk=st&q=#e32a7e7bad2ebf54>

>> Did you use cards on the ICL 2976 for your labs?
> 
> No. We used a VAX. ....

Was that in a room with 16 terminals in Lilybank Gardens,
using the "HOCUS" system on a VAX 11/750?

> As a matter of interest, have I
> already asked you if you could remember who we might have been taught
> by? It was an old, miserable guy who wore tweed a lot as far as I can
> remember.

I can think of one or two candidates (neither being me!).
Was he tall and gaunt; or shorter, moustached, and a heavy smoker?
 
>> Unlike the first edition of "Pascal", which we typeset and made the
>> camera-ready copy for ourselves, using nroff and a Diablo Hytype daisywheel
>> printer, the 2nd was "professionally" typeset at the publisher's insistence.
> 
>> They inserted a space between the ':' and the '=' of every assignment,
>> and proceeded to expand it to arbitrary widths by justifying every line.
>> Virtually every page of the galleys had to be re-set.
> 
> LOL - Nightmare!

Our most recent effort:
<http://www.amazon.co.uk/Programming-Language-Design-Concepts-David/dp/04708
53204/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208095483&sr=1-1>
was re-set by the publisher, using our .doc files, in their "house style",
and they managed to make it less legible, in my opinion, than our originals.
Ho hum.

At least it contains a fair account of Ada, showing its advantages,
especially for concurrency, over the other languages covered.
This despite opposition from the publisher and anonymous reviewers.
It seems that complete ignorance of Ada is no bar to pontificating about it.

-- 
Bill Findlay
<surname><forename> chez blueyonder.co.uk