Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada

["John R. Strohm" <strohm@airmail.net>]

"Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message
news:1039717990.240969@master.nyc.kbcfp.com...
> Fraser Wilson wrote:
> > Not quite as concise as Integer'Image (X)!
>
> Or sprintf(buf, "%u", u), for that matter.
> The code was illustrative of the kind of manipulation
> that C was intended to facilitate. Not getting in the
> way of the programmer was a major design goal.

Sorry.  That is a popular misconception.

C was intended to be a high-level assembler for the PDP-11, that would be
easy to translate into concise machine code.  That is where the ++ and --
operators originally came from.  Specifically, Kernighan and Ritchie wanted
to be able to use the indirect predecrement and indirect postincrement
addressing modes of the PDP-11, which C expresses as *--var and *var++, so
they hardwired them into the language.

Yes, the language did have to stay out of the programmer's way, but that was
not an explicit design goal.

Experience since then has shown, conclusively, that "staying out of the way
of the programmer" is not necessarily a good idea.  C takes the philosophy
that, because 0.01% of the time the programmer is correct in wanting to do
something, the language should allow him to do it easily 100% of the time,
EVEN THOUGH IT IS A HORRIBLE MISTAKE 99.99% of the time.  Ada, on the other
hand, takes the attitude that it should be ugly as hell to do that thing, so
that 99.99% of the time the programmer won't do it, and, on that 0.01% where
he really means it, he has to work for it and everyone reading the code
three years later knows he is doing something unusual.

Unusual things, with interesting, subtle effects, should advertise
themselves to novice programmers.  It is like the notation on the old maps,
"Here Be Tygers".