Re: A Poor Man's Ada Library

[peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)]

Thank you for an informative article, but don't you think it would have been
better to redirect followups to the groups in which a discussion of Ada might
be appropriate, rather than the one group for which it clearly isn't? The
Ada versus C war was amusing in it's time, but that time is now long past.

In an attempt to provide a little information, now, here's a couple of quotes
from Charles Anthony Richard Hoare, whose Turing Award speech was directed
at the Ada language:

	"There are two ways of constructing a software design.  One way is
	 to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and
	 the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious
	 deficiencies."

		- C. A. R. Hoare

	"Do not allow this language (Ada) in its present state to be used
	 in applications where reliability is critical, i.e., nuclear
	 power stations, cruise missiles, early warning systems, anti-
	 ballistic missle defense systems.  The next rocket to go astray
	 as a result of a programming language error may not be an
	 exploratory space rocket on a harmless trip to Venus: It may be a
	 nuclear warhead exploding over one of our cities.  An unreliable
	 programming language generating unreliable programs constitutes a
	 far greater risk to our environment and to our society than
	 unsafe cars, toxic pesticides, or accidents at nuclear power
	 stations."

		- C. A. R. Hoare
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