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=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fac41,2c6139ce13be9980 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,3d3f20d31be1c33a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,2c6139ce13be9980 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public From: donh@syd.csa.com.au (Don Harrison) Subject: Re: The stupidity of all the Ariane 5 analysts. Date: 1997/08/08 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 262794614 Sender: news@syd.csa.com.au References: <33DE3CC7.2294@gsg.eds.com> Reply-To: donh@syd.csa.com.au X-Nntp-Posting-Host: dev50 Organization: CSC Australia, Sydney Newsgroups: comp.software-eng,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.eiffel Date: 1997-08-08T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: This is a response to something posted to comp.lang.ada but not comp.lang.eiffel.. "Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" wrote: :Robert Dewar wrote: :> :> I would think experience would teach us to be very suspicious of any :> claims by anyone to have a silver bullet panacea wjhen it comes to :> software engineering for large systems. :> :> However tools and techniques that help, even a little bit, are welcome :> even if they are not a panacea (I consider Ada to be in this category, :> and I always find it annoying when people advertise Ada as being :> a silver bullet panacea). Me too. :) :I would go farther; I am suspicious of anyone who advocates a particular :languages and can't tell me anything in the language that he dislikes. Presumably, you're talking about me. :) If you think I never have any criticisms of Eiffel, you're mistaken. What may surprise you even more is that I sometimes have positive things to say about Ada! - for example, two recent posts to comp.lang.eiffel under the subject "Ennumerations in Eiffel" (31.7.97 and 1.8.97). These included two criticisms of Eiffel and one positive comment about Ada. Also, was my agreement with criticisms of Eiffel WRT use of assertions and GC in hard realtime software a glowing endorsement of Eiffel? I think not. :If he can't identify flaws, either he's too inexperienced to rely on or :isn't perceptive enough. Thank you. :) :*any* programming language will have warts, Eiffel has its flaws; it's just that Ada has about 50 times more. :) :and a real professional will recognize them and have strategies for dealing :with them. Agree. BTW, one the few areas where Ada is streets ahead of Eiffel (and most languages), IMO, is standardisation. While Eiffel does have a standard language and libraries, not all vendors comply with them. Part of the problem is that there is no official certification of Eiffel compilers and, hence, no validation suite as there is in Ada. Obviously, this causes portability problems. Just because someone is biased, doesn't mean they can't also be honest and objective. Also, one can be biased with or without justification. P.S. It shows considerably more intestinal fortitude to criticise someone to their face rather than where you don't think they'll hear you. Even if they don't agree with what you have to say, they may at least respect you for not saying it behind their back. :( Don. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Don Harrison donh@syd.csa.com.au