Re: Top 10 Ada myths

[eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)]

In article <3kc5ig$164a@watnews1.watson.ibm.com> ncohen@watson.ibm.com (Norman H. Cohen) writes:

  > (Another myth worth listing: "Ada was designed by committee."  The
  > design of Ada 83 is principally the vision of one person, Jean
  > Ichbiah, who had many expert advisors, but no board of directors
  > voting his decisions up or down.  The Ada-95 revisions are
  > principally the vision of one person, Tucker Taft, whose detailed
  > design decisions also benefitted from the advice, but not the
  > direction, of many advisors, including open groups of volunteer
  > reviewers.)

     Jean Ichbiah did have a couple of "Boards of Directors" which
could and did try to exert control over the direction taken.  But I
remember talking to Robert Dewar during the Ada 83 standardization
effort.  He described a DR vote (on eliminating derived types?) by
saying, "But the vote was eight to Ichbiah, so it will probably be
reversed."

     The same thing happened with Ada 95.  When Tucker Taft didn't
like the "advice" he was given by the DR's or WG9, he came back with a
better idea or a better explanation.  So the guiding hand behind the
Ada 95 revison has always been Tucker's, and AFAIK, there is no part
of the language which Tucker has reservations about. (Of course, the
moment anything in this field is "finished," you find errors and bugs.
But Ada 95 has been much, much better than Ada 83 in this regard, and
Ada 83 was better than most published langauge standards.)

     


--

					Robert I. Eachus

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