Re: Ada and robots

[jsa@alexandria.organon.com (Jon S Anthony)]

In article <199706201607.MAA01178@mermaid.ctron.com> Huy Vo <vo@CTRON.COM> writes:

> >Um, this just means Ada _labels_ unchecked conversion as dangerous. In C
> >it may be "simple", but it is NOT "safe". (Maybe you forgot a smiley?)
> >
> Safe or not safe, it looks like Ada programs can crash on the field like
> a previous poster admitted. The worse thing is that it leaves no trace
> as to what leads to the crash.  And other posters have to come up with
> ugly 'C hacks'  to provide traceback of Ada programs. There goes the myth
> that Ada programs need no debugging.

a) No one is dumb enough to suggest Ada programs are by nature some
how bug free.  So, you are just giving a silly strawman

b) Trace backs or not are _implementation_ dependent.  Plenty of C
implementations have nothing to offer here either (put together with
the fact that most have absolutely worthless compile time diagnostics
and you have something that basically offers zero support).

c) In this particular case (fiddling with machine level
representations) the most you can conclude from your "comment" is that
neither has an advantage over the other, i.e., for this _particular_
case, you claim that it's a wash.

d) Even in HW interfacing there is a _lot_ more going on than the
actual machine level fiddling.  This work invariably requires
(implicitly or explicitly) higher level abstractions.

e) No one is dumb enough to suggest C has high level abstraction
capabilities such as found in Ada.

f) Since a) & b) are irrelevant, c) is a wash and d) & e) favor Ada,
you would still have to claim a _general_ positive for Ada even under
your account.

/Jon

-- 
Jon Anthony
OMI, Belmont, MA 02178
617.484.3383
"Nightmares - Ha!  The way my life's been going lately,
 Who'd notice?"  -- Londo Mollari