Re: which language

Re: which language

[Mike Silva]

lezawang wrote in message <370384A6.A0892837@hotmail.com>...
>Could you please email if you could:\
>===========================
>is that right next 5 years Java will take over in embedded sysyetm, if
>yes why, why should embedded s/w developer do not keep using C++, is
>Java better, why


If you want to choose the best language for your embedded work, you also
need to take a good look at Ada95.  It's got the features you need for
embedded work (e.g. concurrency, interrupt handlers and representation
clauses [for mapping hardware to software] are built in), you can do OOP if
you choose, and the compile-time and runtime checking are very rigorous.
I've recently concluded that it's the best "next" language for me.
http://www.adahome.com and comp.lang.ada are good places to start looking.

Mike

Re: which language

[Ron Natalie]

Mike Silva wrote:
> 
> If you want to choose the best language for your embedded work, you also
> need to take a good look at Ada95.  It's got the features you need for
> embedded work (e.g. concurrency, interrupt handlers and representation
> clauses [for mapping hardware to software] are built in), you can do 

This shouldn't surprise anybody.  Embedded systems was what Ada
was designed for.  It was too bad that the 432 was such a dog
performance wise.

Re: which language

[Pat Rogers]

lezawang <lezawang@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:370384A6.A0892837@hotmail.com...
> is that right next 5 years Java will take over in embedded sysyetm, if
> yes why, why should embedded s/w developer do not keep using C++, is
> Java better, why

By your question you assume that one language is to be used for any
given application (embedded, in this specific case).  There are those
who believe that multiple language use within individual projects will
increasingly be the norm.  That really shouldn't surprise us, since most
people seem to believe that the best tool should be used for the job in
question, and that different languages are best for different jobs.

So one question you should ask yourself is: "What languages are really
good at interfacing with other languages, and to what extent are the
interfacing mechanisms standardized?"

---
Pat Rogers                            Training and Consulting in:
http://www.classwide.com      Deadline Schedulability Analysis
progers@classwide.com       Software Fault Tolerance
(281)648-3165                        Real-Time/OO Languages

Re: which language

[kevin]

In article <923071024.434.75@news.remarQ.com>, "Pat says...
 
> There are those
>who believe that multiple language use within individual projects will
>increasingly be the norm.  That really shouldn't surprise us, since most
>people seem to believe that the best tool should be used for the job in
>question, and that different languages are best for different jobs.
>
 
This is a weak argument. (Isn't this the reason why Ada was invented in
the first place by the defense dept.? So that everyone will use one 
Language? Of course this attempt have failed due to bad management). 

There should be one main language used on the project. Other languages such
as scripting languages, (bash, perl, etc..) can be used for peripheral 
project related stuff (such as to help in testing, driving test 
programs etc..), and a good source control system, and build 
tools (Makefile etc..).

People now seem to say that there will be no need to use any other
language on a project other than Java. 

The resons given is that Java provides an API to do anything you need,
GUI, Corba, threads, internet, distributed stuff, etc.. all in one language. 

With Ada, to interface to the OS, or any other piece of software 
written in C or C++ most likely, you need to build those C programs and 
have those be called by Ada. (such as with the Ada posix API). 

And from what I've seen the Ada posix packages are not working well 
on some platforms. on some platforms I've read they don't even build 
or run correctly.

In Java, the JVM worries about the this sort of thing, and the
programmer only need to worry about building the Java source code, and
learning the Java API.

I've been told yesterday from someone at a large company I worked for
before, that that company just announced that Java is now the official
language of that company. meaning no applications are to be written 
in anything but by Java in that company (15,000+ employees company).  

Having one language used simplifies many things. This one language need
not be the best at every thing, but if it is the best on most things, this
is good enough, and this is better than using many languages where each 
is best at the one thing. 

It is clear that Java will become the dominant language of use for
developing applications software with (not system software of course), 
beating C/C++/Ada and any other language.

Kevin.

Re: which language

[Jeff Kenton]

kevin@k writes:

>I've been told yesterday from someone at a large company I worked for
>before, that that company just announced that Java is now the official
>language of that company. meaning no applications are to be written 
>in anything but by Java in that company (15,000+ employees company).  

I remember one company that decreed that all their software would be
written in COBOL, with only "minor routines" in other languages.  This
led to programmers writing one-line COBOL main routines [ I know, there
is no such thing ] calling 360 assembly routines that did all the real
work.

People will always find ways around silly regulations.


-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
=	Jeff Kenton			jkenton@world.std.com		=
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: which language

[aerosoft]

BASIC is probably still the most widely used and most portable language
for general business apllications. 

Java has to somehow replace BASIC - maybe it will - they are very
similar.  Both languages have an English syntax (there are very few
languages that doesn't!) and usually runs on interpreters, with simple
garbage disposal.

For specialized and real-time applications, there will always be a need
for other languages though.

kevin@k wrote:
> 
> In article <923071024.434.75@news.remarQ.com>, "Pat says...
> 
> > There are those
> >who believe that multiple language use within individual projects will
> >increasingly be the norm.  That really shouldn't surprise us, since most
> >people seem to believe that the best tool should be used for the job in
> >question, and that different languages are best for different jobs.
> >
> 
> This is a weak argument. (Isn't this the reason why Ada was invented in
> the first place by the defense dept.? So that everyone will use one
> Language? Of course this attempt have failed due to bad management).
> 
> There should be one main language used on the project. Other languages such
> as scripting languages, (bash, perl, etc..) can be used for peripheral
> project related stuff (such as to help in testing, driving test
> programs etc..), and a good source control system, and build
> tools (Makefile etc..).
> 
> People now seem to say that there will be no need to use any other
> language on a project other than Java.
> 
> The resons given is that Java provides an API to do anything you need,
> GUI, Corba, threads, internet, distributed stuff, etc.. all in one language.
> 
> With Ada, to interface to the OS, or any other piece of software
> written in C or C++ most likely, you need to build those C programs and
> have those be called by Ada. (such as with the Ada posix API).
> 
> And from what I've seen the Ada posix packages are not working well
> on some platforms. on some platforms I've read they don't even build
> or run correctly.
> 
> In Java, the JVM worries about the this sort of thing, and the
> programmer only need to worry about building the Java source code, and
> learning the Java API.
> 
> I've been told yesterday from someone at a large company I worked for
> before, that that company just announced that Java is now the official
> language of that company. meaning no applications are to be written
> in anything but by Java in that company (15,000+ employees company).
> 
> Having one language used simplifies many things. This one language need
> not be the best at every thing, but if it is the best on most things, this
> is good enough, and this is better than using many languages where each
> is best at the one thing.
> 
> It is clear that Java will become the dominant language of use for
> developing applications software with (not system software of course),
> beating C/C++/Ada and any other language.
> 
> Kevin.

Re: which language

[Michael Covington]

Yes, BASIC has its virtues.  It is easily subsettable (that is, you don't
have to learn all of it before using some of it); simple programs can be
very short; implementation is relatively simple, esp. with interpreters; and
it therefore has a lot of appeal for applications where the algorithm is not
too complicated.

For more subtle algorithms and data structures, C and C++ win, of course; I
like Object Pascal (Borland) even better.

But BASIC strikes me as suitable for the things people do on embedded
systems, where the programs are not too big or complicated.  The popularity
of the BASIC Stamp is easy to understand.
--
Michael A. Covington - Artificial Intelligence Center - University of
Georgia
http://www.ai.uga.edu/~mc  http://www.mindspring.com/~covington  <><

Re: which language

[Rufus V. Smith]

I'm glad there are still some Pascal fans out there.

Too bad C had to be so much fun.

Michael Covington wrote in message <7e3brl$lcf$1@cronkite.cc.uga.edu>...
>Yes, BASIC has its virtues.  It is easily subsettable (that is, you don't
>have to learn all of it before using some of it); simple programs can be
>very short; implementation is relatively simple, esp. with interpreters;
and
>it therefore has a lot of appeal for applications where the algorithm is
not
>too complicated.
>
>For more subtle algorithms and data structures, C and C++ win, of course; I
>like Object Pascal (Borland) even better.
>
>But BASIC strikes me as suitable for the things people do on embedded
>systems, where the programs are not too big or complicated.  The popularity
>of the BASIC Stamp is easy to understand.
>--
>Michael A. Covington - Artificial Intelligence Center - University of
>Georgia
>http://www.ai.uga.edu/~mc  http://www.mindspring.com/~covington  <><
>
>
>

Re: which language

[Bob Cousins]

In comp.arch.embedded, kevin@k wrote:

>People now seem to say that there will be no need to use any other
>language on a project other than Java. 

I think history has shown that inventing a new language just produces a new
language to add to the set of possible languages that can be used and argued
about. Of course, inventing a new language which is to be the new single
standard is counter-productive ;-)

No language is ever going to do everything, but people will keep inventing
slightly better ones. Given that there are very significant niches in embedded
systems where assembler still has a strong hold, you could say that HLLs have
not even taken over, so what chance is there for Java.

There is no magic bullet to software development, and Java just replaces one set
of problems with a different set. You've still got to hire programmers, find out
what the hell the customer really wants, run the project on a shoestring, and
run round supporting it. Provided you choose from the right class of language
(i.e. assembler, 3GL, OO, compiled/interpreted) the exact runes don't matter so
much.
-- 
Bob Cousins, Software Engineer.
http://www.lintilla.demon.co.uk/
"We demand that we may, or may not, be philosophers!"

Re: which language

[bglbv]

"Michael Covington" <mc@ai.uga.edu> writes:

> Yes, BASIC has its virtues. [...]

> For more subtle algorithms and data structures, C and C++ win, of course; I
                                                                 ^^^^^^^^^
Over Basic, perhaps; but not absolutely. That "of course" seems
inappropriate to those of us who read this thread in comp.lang.ada.

> like Object Pascal (Borland) even better.

Ah, that's better.

> But BASIC strikes me as suitable for the things people do on embedded
> systems, where the programs are not too big or complicated.  The popularity
> of the BASIC Stamp is easy to understand.

You seem to have a narrower definition of "embedded system" than the
rest of us. Wouldn't you agree that the controls of Ariane rockets
or Boeing 777 aircraft qualify as embedded systems? Do you really
believe that the software that manages them is so small and simple
that it could safely be written in Basic?

Re: which language

[Mike12]

In article <7e4lje$ko3$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>, mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk says...
 
>But Ada on the other hand has all the mechanisms in place that you
>want to have for embedded and systems-level programming, 

your view of system programming must be different than mine.

Show me the source code for one Ada device driver for any Unix or windows
or Mac or VMS that is written in Ada.

Show me an operating system that is written in Ada.

Show me a server that is written in Ada.

On top of all that, to use Ada to access anything on Unix or windows, 
you need to have your Ada program call a C program to do that for it (as in
the Ada posix software or on windows, some win32 binding).

So much for using Ada for system programming.  

When I see people on Linux/freeBSD etc.. use Ada to write kernel 
stuff with it, then I'll call it a system programming language.

For the last 30 years, and may be for the next 30 years, C will remain
the main language used for system programming. Even the Java JVM is
written in C.  (do you know of a JVM written in Ada?) 

Mike
 

Re: which language

[Matt Austern]

samiam@cisco.com (Scott A. Moore) writes:

> The two sure signs of a loser language is that
> 
> A. It was designed by a comittee.
> 
> B. It was designed to encoporate *everything* that was considered
> state of the art at the time of design.
> 
> Famous examples include pl/1, ada, Cobol, etc.
> 
> I would put ANSI C++ in the "designed by comittee" section.
> Most of the successful ones, C, lisp, Java etc., were designed by
> an individual or small group to solve a restricted problem.
> 
> Finally, we are pretty sure that Fortran was never designed by
> anyone. Theories include evolution, random chance, and "it was
> a virus sent here from another species".

What conceivable definition of success could classify Cobol, C++, and
Fortran as unsuccessful languages?  Fortran and Cobol are dominant in
their (large and important) niches.  C++ isn't quite as successful as
those two, but it's also several decades younger.

Re: which language

[Corey Minyard]

Mike12@ writes:

> In article <7e4lje$ko3$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>, mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk says...
>  
> >But Ada on the other hand has all the mechanisms in place that you
> >want to have for embedded and systems-level programming, 
> 
> your view of system programming must be different than mine.

I have been doing systems programming for quite a while and Ada
programming for a shorter period of time.  IMHO, Ada is a very good
systems programming language.  C is also a good systems programming
language from a capability point of view, but looses in the area of
being error-prone and non-portable.  Not that you can't write good
portable code in C, it is just much harder.

> Show me the source code for one Ada device driver for any Unix or windows
> or Mac or VMS that is written in Ada.

If it would change peoples opinion I might be willing to write one.  A
Linux driver shouldn't be too hard to do.  But I doubt that it would
change any opinions, so I probably won't.

> 
> Show me an operating system that is written in Ada.

There have been several.  I've personally used one - a Rational
machine in the late 80's.  Thinking back, it was actually a pretty
cool machine.

> Show me a server that is written in Ada.

What is a server?  Is the flight control system in a Boeing 777 a
server?  How about the system that handles the in-flight movies?  I
wrote a program to talk to an alphanumeric pager service.  Is that a
server?  Or is a server only a thing that sits on the internet?

> On top of all that, to use Ada to access anything on Unix or windows, 
> you need to have your Ada program call a C program to do that for it (as in
> the Ada posix software or on windows, some win32 binding).

To really do anything in any operating system, you have to have
everything eventually go to assembly calls.  So using your logic, C
cannot be a systems programming language either, only assembly can
truly be a systems programming language.

Beyond that, Ada is capable of performing any function that C can
perform, assuming it conforms to the systems programming annex.
Obviously, you couldn't do systems programming in the Ada compilers
that target the JVM, but you can't do systems programming on top of
the JVM, anyway.

> 
> So much for using Ada for system programming.  
> 
> When I see people on Linux/freeBSD etc.. use Ada to write kernel 
> stuff with it, then I'll call it a system programming language.

There has been talk about this, initialization is really the only
problem unless you want a fully conformant Ada with tasking and the
like (which would be silly for kernel programming).  But C++ is in the
same boat as Ada here.  Like I said before, it shouldn't be too hard
to do.

> For the last 30 years, and may be for the next 30 years, C will remain
> the main language used for system programming. Even the Java JVM is
> written in C.  (do you know of a JVM written in Ada?) 

Umm, C has not been the dominant systems programming language for 30
years.  It has not become dominant until the last 15 years or so.
Before that is was assembly, PL/S (a variant of PL/I used by IBM), and
a host of other languages.  I'm pretty sure VMS was not written in C.
If memory serves me correctly, Windows was not done in C, but Pascal.
Not NT, which I believe was done in C, but 3.1 and 95.  Was the Mac
done in C?  I don't remember.

And just because it has not been done doesn't mean it could not be
done.  A JVM could easily be written in Ada.  Well, maybe not easily,
but it would be no harder than with C and perhaps a little easier.

-- 
Corey Minyard                   Internet:  minyard@acm.org
  Work: minyard@nortelnetworks.com  UUCP:  minyard@wf-rch.cirr.com

Re: which language

[Scott A. Moore]

In article <7e33sn$9fn@drn.newsguy.com>
kevin@k wrote:

> In article <923071024.434.75@news.remarQ.com>, "Pat says...
>  
>> There are those
>>who believe that multiple language use within individual projects will
>>increasingly be the norm.  That really shouldn't surprise us, since most
>>people seem to believe that the best tool should be used for the job in
>>question, and that different languages are best for different jobs.
>>
>  
> This is a weak argument. (Isn't this the reason why Ada was invented in
> the first place by the defense dept.? So that everyone will use one 
> Language? Of course this attempt have failed due to bad management). 
> 

The two sure signs of a loser language is that

A. It was designed by a comittee.

B. It was designed to encoporate *everything* that was considered
state of the art at the time of design.

Famous examples include pl/1, ada, Cobol, etc.

I would put ANSI C++ in the "designed by comittee" section.
Most of the successful ones, C, lisp, Java etc., were designed by
an individual or small group to solve a restricted problem.

Finally, we are pretty sure that Fortran was never designed by
anyone. Theories include evolution, random chance, and "it was
a virus sent here from another species".

                                  [sam]

The year 2000. The stock market hitting 10,000.
These events prove once and for all that we
have ten fingers......

Re: which language

[Matthew Heaney]

samiam@cisco.com (Scott A. Moore) writes:

> The two sure signs of a loser language is that
> 
> A. It was designed by a comittee.
> 
> B. It was designed to encoporate *everything* that was considered
> state of the art at the time of design.
> 
> Famous examples include pl/1, ada, Cobol, etc.

I suspect that Scott has not done any Ada programming.

Ada83 was designed by a team, with Jean Ichbiah acting as team
captain.  Jean had veto power over the rest of the team, and many design
decisions 12-to-1 against Jean were won in Jean's favor.  This is all
documented in HOPL-II.

Ada95 was designed by a team, with Tucker Taft acting as team captain.
His philosophy was to add type extension to the language by modifying
the existing type model, instead bolting on a new and orthogonal
mechanism.

Each version of the language thus reflects the vision of one man.  To
describe Ada as "designed by committee" only portends ignorance of the
facts.

Re: which language

[Markus Kuhn]

In article <7e33sn$9fn@drn.newsguy.com>, kevin@k writes:
|> People now seem to say that there will be no need to use any other
|> language on a project other than Java. 

Java is a nice language, but it is so damn inefficient. It remains an
interpreter language. I have yet to see a Java compiler that produces
code running nearly as efficient as what I get with Ada95 or C++.

What is the most efficient way of running Java applications with
open source tools under Linux/ix86? I'd like to see whether the performance
that I can achieve on some image processing and cryptography benchmarks
comes even close to that of the Ada95 version under GNAT or the C++
version under gcc.

The other thing that makes me highy uncomfortable as accepting Java
as the good-for-everything language is that it is inherently based
on dynamic memory management with GC, which is quite troublesome
for embedded and safety critical real-time applications. Ada95
goes to great length to allow comfortable programing without
having to rely on heap allocation, which makes runtime and
memory behaviour considerably more predictable in safety
evaluations.

The Java and Ada95 core languages provide very comparable high-level
constructs (exceptions, tasking, overloading, inheritance, variable
length arrays, run-time type checking, packaged name spaces, etc.)
and they are both considerable better to work with than C++ from a
good software engineering perspective.

Java (like Python) certainly wins as far as the availability of standard
libraries for business applications is concerned, while Ada's standard library
follows more the spartanic traditions of the C and C++ standards.
But Ada on the other hand has all the mechanisms in place that you
want to have for embedded and systems-level programming, ranging from
excellent control over how the bits in your records are layed out to
inline assembler and the ability to program completely without ever
using a heap allocation.

Well, the situation with libraries for Ada at least under Linux is
improving very quickly, and we have at least for Linux users quite a
range of important basic APIs available:

  http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/linux-ada/

Markus

-- 
Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK
Email: mkuhn at acm.org,  WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>

Re: which language

[Markus Kuhn]

In samiam@cisco.com (Scott A. Moore) writes:
|> The two sure signs of a loser language is that
|> 
|> A. It was designed by a comittee.
|> B. It was designed to encoporate *everything* that was considered
|> state of the art at the time of design.
|> 
|> Famous examples include pl/1, ada, Cobol, etc.
|> 
|> I would put ANSI C++ in the "designed by comittee" section.
|> Most of the successful ones, C, lisp, Java etc., were designed by
|> an individual or small group to solve a restricted problem.

Hm, I hate to disturb the beauty of your polemic argument, but Ada83
was clearly designed by Mr. Jean Ichiba of Bull, and Ada95 was designed
by Mr. Tucker Taft of Intermetrics, both supported by small teams of
software engineers in their respective companies. Ada is by no means
a committee language! Ada also does not incoporate "everything". It is
in fact a rather nice, simple, and easy to learn language. I highly
recommend to have a quick look at it. Online Ada95 tutorials are
available on

  http://www.adahome.com/Tutorials/

The Ada95 standard without the library annexes is only 248 pages
long. Compare this with C++ or Java (or worst of all with ISO C 9X!).
Ada95 is basically a well-designed object-oriented Pascal variant with
excellent support for low-level safety-critical systems programming.
It has a quickly growing fan community.

Ada is unfortunately the language on which elderly people who have never
used it have the strongest opinions. It seems to be commonly accepted that
Ada is "designed-by-committee and much-too-complex", although this is just
a load of bullshit for people who use it daily. Ada95 is a highly elegant,
safe, simple, and easy to learn language, whose reputation was badly
damanged by some famous computer science professors around 1980 who were
disgruntled about a very early draft of the language. This has created
a lot of silly urban legends around Ada.

(Also, while your argument might be true for PL/1, my friends in the
Y2K consultancy world assure me that COBOL is far from a looser
language (in fact it fills their pockets with big bucks as we speak). :-)

The popularity of Ada has only really started to show exponential
growth after the full 1995 revision of the language and after the
GNU Ada95 compiler has become freely available and robust. In
evaluating the popularity of Ada95, please do not forget that it
is a younger language than Java. There is a LOT of activity
around it that you might just not yet be aware off, because unlike
Java, Ada95 is a strongly-typed and not a strongly-hyped language.

If you fly with a Boing or Airbus plane, spend some time in an
intensive care unit, use a train or live next to a nuclear power
plant, there is a very good chance today that your safety depends
directly on a piece of software written in Ada. Mr. Milosevitch
currently gets a full demonstration of the performance and success
of some very large scale Ada applications. Much of the world's most
important code is written in Ada, without any hype surrounding it.

Markus

-- 
Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK
Email: mkuhn at acm.org,  WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>

Re: which language

[Michael Garrett]

I think converstations about Java should start seperating the language from
its output. Products are becoming available such as Diab FastJ, which
generate very fast native code. For embedded applications, you do not always
need the JVM. I think Cygnus is working on a Java front end for gcc also.

Michael Garrett




Markus Kuhn wrote in message <7e4lje$ko3$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>...
>In article <7e33sn$9fn@drn.newsguy.com>, kevin@k writes:
>|> People now seem to say that there will be no need to use any other
>|> language on a project other than Java.
>

Re: which language

[Corey Minyard]

samiam@cisco.com (Scott A. Moore) writes:
> 
> The two sure signs of a loser language is that
> 
> A. It was designed by a comittee.
> 
> B. It was designed to encoporate *everything* that was considered
> state of the art at the time of design.
> 
> Famous examples include pl/1, ada, Cobol, etc.
> 
> I would put ANSI C++ in the "designed by comittee" section.
> Most of the successful ones, C, lisp, Java etc., were designed by
> an individual or small group to solve a restricted problem.

As other's will surely point out, neither Ada83 nor Ada95 were
designed by committee, but by an individual under competition with
other individuals.

I will also point out that ANSI C (certainly a vast improvement over
K&R C) was at least approved by an ANSI subcommittee and ANSI C++ had
design decisions made by Stroustrup (the only one I can think of now
is the redesign of the cast operator, but I seem to remember others)
overriden by the ANSI committee.

I had the same attitude about Ada95 until I actually tried to use it.
It is not actually a very big language; certainly smaller than C++.
But more functional IMHO.

> Finally, we are pretty sure that Fortran was never designed by
> anyone. Theories include evolution, random chance, and "it was
> a virus sent here from another species".

Fortran seems to have been designed by mathemeticians, who arguably
could be another species :-).

-- 
Corey Minyard                   Internet:  minyard@acm.org
  Work: minyard@nortelnetworks.com  UUCP:  minyard@wf-rch.cirr.com

Re: which language

[bglbv]

Corey Minyard <minyard@acm.org> writes:

> samiam@cisco.com (Scott A. Moore) writes:

> > Finally, we are pretty sure that Fortran was never designed by
> > anyone. Theories include evolution, random chance, and "it was
> > a virus sent here from another species".

> Fortran seems to have been designed by mathemeticians, who arguably
> could be another species :-).

The first Fortran was designed in much the same way as Ada 83;
substitute "John Backus" for "Jean Ichbiah" and "IBM" for "Bull".
I'd rather say it was designed by engineers for engineers (and
physical scientists). If you want something to blame the
mathematicians for, try Lisp and APL.

In recent times, the evolution of Fortran has been steered by a
committee (which is currently rather small and understaffed).
Despite this, Fortran 90 has been quite a success.

Re: which language

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

> Ada is unfortunately the language on which elderly people who have never
> used it have the strongest opinions. It seems to be commonly accepted that
> Ada is "designed-by-committee and much-too-complex", although this is just

I'm 24, which (last time I checked) didn't *quite* qualify me for the
geriatric ward. And my view on Ada is that it's absolutely no point for ME
to learn because all the systems I've ever been called upon to build can be
built very creditably and reliably using things I already know, without
requiring me to learn a line of some obscure pedantry someone else (who has
no idea of what I'm trying to do) calls "the best" computer programming
language.

Also, in a goodly number of years researching ready-rolled algorithms for
various projects, I have NEVER ONCE come across a single line of Ada
sourcecode, even though I rarely specify language when I'm searching.
Implication being that almost nobody else is using it either. None of the
micros I've used have manufacturer-supported Ada development tools. Wait on
- I'm seeing a pattern emerge here...

Even if it was the best thing since sliced bread, and even if its complexity
and lunacy are urban legends, they are SELF-FULFILLING urban legends. Why
should I step out and use a product for which I will find no peer or
manufacturer support, and which forces me to jump through unknowable
learning curve hoops? Screw that.

If there's one thing I can't stand it's language pedantry and style
policing. There's no place for it in embedded engineering! The arguments pro
Ada all sound suspiciously like linguistic racism to me.

Re: which language

[Tom Moran]

>I'm 24, which (last time I checked) didn't *quite* qualify me for the
>geriatric ward. And my view on Ada is that it's absolutely no point for ME
>to learn because all the systems I've ever been called upon to build can be
>built very creditably and reliably using things I already know,
  Ah to be young and ignorant again. ;)  When I was 24 I'd never seen
a single line of C or Ada or Java - since they hadn't been invented..
All the system software (including virtual memory, multi-tasking,
telecomm, e-mail, "dynamically loadable objects" etc) I'd seen had
been written in  Algol, Neliac, or assembly language, not a one of
which pays any of my bills today.  If  "things I already know" today
are all you will ever need to know in your career, I pity you for such
a boring future.

Re: which language

[Tom Moran]

> to use Ada to access anything on Unix or windows, 
>you need to have your Ada program call a C program to do that for it (as in
>the Ada posix software or on windows, some win32 binding
I use Ada on Windows systems just fine.  I never call a C routine.  I
do of course call the Windows API, using the STDCALL (Pascal) calling
convention.  Methinks your ignorance is showing. 

Re: which language

[Tom Moran]

>Show me the source code for one Ada device driver for any Unix or windows...
I did several for (television) video capture/display cards and audio
capture/play under DOS.  Since manufacturers now supply those drivers
for Windows, the occasion hasn't arisen to duplicate their work.  If
you truly want to "Show me the source code" tell me - there's quite a
lot to e-mail.  For just a taste, look on Compuserve for VOCSHOW or
BACKTALK.

Re: which language

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

>>I'm 24, which (last time I checked) didn't *quite* qualify me for the
>>geriatric ward. And my view on Ada is that it's absolutely no point for ME
>>to learn because all the systems I've ever been called upon to build can be
>>built very creditably and reliably using things I already know,
>
> which pays any of my bills today.  If  "things I already know" today
> are all you will ever need to know in your career, I pity you for such
> a boring future.

Methinks you've missed the point. The point is, the world does not seem to
be moving towards Ada for anything in particular. In the fields where I
work, I never hear the language mentioned by anyone. The only arguments
people seem to be able to raise for it here seem to belong to the
language-purism category.

I can, will and often do gladly learn anything if I think it will help me
solve a problem better or faster, or if I think it's something damn fun to
know about. Ada does NOT fall inside those limits.

I'd much rather pick a language where there are large numbers of peers to
help me answer weird questions than a maverick language with about three
users in my field in the entire world.

Re: which language

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

>>I'm 24, which (last time I checked) didn't *quite* qualify me for the
>>geriatric ward. And my view on Ada is that it's absolutely no point for ME
>>to learn because all the systems I've ever been called upon to build can be
>>built very creditably and reliably using things I already know,
>
> which pays any of my bills today.  If  "things I already know" today
> are all you will ever need to know in your career, I pity you for such
> a boring future.

Methinks you've missed the point. The point is, the world does not seem to
be moving towards Ada for anything in particular. In the fields where I
work, I never hear the language mentioned by anyone. The only arguments
people seem to be able to raise for it here seem to belong to the
language-purism category.

I can, will and often do gladly learn anything if I think it will help me
solve a problem better or faster, or if I think it's something damn fun to
know about. Ada does NOT fall inside those limits.

I'd much rather pick a language where there are large numbers of peers to
help me answer weird questions than a maverick language with about three
users in my field in the entire world.

Re: which language

[Matthew Heaney]

"Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" <sysadm@zws.com> writes:

> The arguments pro Ada all sound suspiciously like linguistic racism to
> me.

Funny you should say it that way, because the arguments con Ada sound
just like "linguistic racism" too!

It's just a tool, guys.  It ain't a religion, so relax.  If you don't
like Ada95, then don't use it!

Re: which language

[Tom Moran]

>I can, will and often do gladly learn anything if I think it will help me
>solve a problem better or faster, or if I think it's something damn fun to
>know about. 
  Those are exactly the reasons I learned Ada some years ago.   At the
time I didn't know anyone who used Ada in my fields - it was all C and
asm.  I'm pleased I learned Ada, even if I couldn't follow other's
footsteps, because I was able to do things in Ada that would have been
much harder in C,  was able to expand into new fields where Ada *was*
known, and, most importantly, replaced my previous hack and debug
style with a much more efficient design/develop/deliver method.

Re: which language

[Chris Hills]

In article <3706e37f.7719585@news.pacbell.net>, Tom Moran
<tmoran@bix.com> writes
>>I'm 24, which (last time I checked) didn't *quite* qualify me for the
>>geriatric ward. And my view on Ada is that it's absolutely no point for ME
>>to learn because all the systems I've ever been called upon to build can be
>>built very creditably and reliably using things I already know,
So you never want to work in areas where Ada is used then?
It looks like a closed mind. Not a good idea for SW engineering. I don't
use Ada either but with an attitude like yours, you would not find a
place in my SW teams.

>  Ah to be young and ignorant again. ;)
I would settle for being young again :-)
....SNIP...
>If  "things I already know" today
>are all you will ever need to know in your career, I pity you for such
>a boring future.
I think it was the IEE who said that in 10 years time 80% of the
[software] engineering community would still be working. However
50% of the skills we will be using have not been invented yet......

The point being in this industry one should never stop learning. By the
same token it implied that 50% of the things you will be doing are
around now. At 24 you have not learnt the old stuff yet. 

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\  Chris Hills          Staffs /\/\/\/\/\/
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\     England      /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Re: which language

[Chris Hills]

In article <fxt4smxyul4.fsf@isolde.engr.sgi.com>, Matt Austern
<austern@sgi.com> writes
>What conceivable definition of success could classify Cobol, C++, and
>Fortran as unsuccessful languages?  Fortran and Cobol are dominant in
>their (large and important) niches.  C++ isn't quite as successful as
>those two, but it's also several decades younger.

Many years ago one of my lecturers at Uni said:-
 
"COBOL is DEAD!!! (We have buried it every year for the last 20)."

COBOL  is still one of the top 4 language skills required in the UK
along with C++.... 

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\  Chris Hills          Staffs /\/\/\/\/\/
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\     England      /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Re: which language

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

> So you never want to work in areas where Ada is used then?

See my other message(s). You can't learn everything, and I have resigned
myself to the fact that I will probably never be an astronaut, champion
baseball player, porno movie star, president and orthopedic surgeon. I don't
dream about that career mix any more. (Well, not much).

Anyone who tries to force me to take systems that work just fine and
redesign them around concepts which don't benefit them in a tangible way is
being silly.

If I can design something that works within spec, in an acceptable timeframe
and inside R&D and mfg budgets too, then why the hell should I tamper with
what is clearly a winning combination, given the sorts of problems I'm asked
to solve (which are very diverse, btw, and range between a 4-bit micro
flashing a few LEDs to a 32-bit micro running something not too far removed
from a high-end PDA)?

The chance that I will be asked to maintain some obscure DoD system is zero.
(The chance that a non-obscure DoD system, paper, statement, component,
policy, idea or person exists is also close to zero).

> It looks like a closed mind. Not a good idea for SW engineering. I don't

I believe in using a scalpel to remove appendices and secateurs to remove
rose branches. If you show me compelling reasons to upgrade to a surgical
cutting laser for my appendectomies and a chainsaw for my rosebush, then
I'll do it, but not before, UNLESS I happen to have a personal interest in
lasers or chainsaws (Hmm...) in which case I will research them on my own
time and - if and when appropriate - bring that knowledge into my work
environment.

> The point being in this industry one should never stop learning. By the

Absolutely. But one needs to be discriminatory in one's learning otherwise a
lot of time is wasted learning irrelevant things. I don't think learning
Portugese would improve my programming either.

> same token it implied that 50% of the things you will be doing are
> around now. At 24 you have not learnt the old stuff yet.

**sigh** But Ada *is* old stuff. If it was going to take the entire universe
by storm, there would be some clouds already. It's not a mainstream
language, it's a niche language. By and large, consumer applications and big
systems are developed in C++ because there are factories turning out
thousands of injection-molded, badly trimmed C++ programmers all over the
world. Really little systems are written mostly in asm for space reasons.
The manufacturer and peer support is there for asm, C and C++ in embedded
environments. Coding in most other HLLs is too much like swimming upstream
with a brick in either hand for my liking.

This argument is running down exactly the same lines as the question I used
to ask people - when I was younger and friskier - "Why don't you use OS/2
for that?". Answer almost always being that it was much less flow-resisting
effort to install Windows and Windows apps than to try to tweak Windows apps
to run in OS/2 or to seek out OS/2 versions from distant star systems. I
didn't agree with this argument at the time, but over the last four or five
years I've really come to appreciate it a whole lot more.

Perhaps we should re-examine who is approaching this problem with a mature
cost-benefit attitude and who is exhibiting kneejerk bigotry at the thought
that someone dares to challenge the One True Faith?

Re: which language

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <7e6d74$h3a@drn.newsguy.com>, Mike12@ writes:
> In article <7e4lje$ko3$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>, mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk says...
>  
>>But Ada on the other hand has all the mechanisms in place that you
>>want to have for embedded and systems-level programming, 
> 
> your view of system programming must be different than mine.
> 
> Show me the source code for one Ada device driver for any Unix or windows
> or Mac or VMS that is written in Ada.

Show me the source code for one C device driver for VAX VMS.

5 years ago DEC added support for C device drivers on Alpha VMS only.
A major component of that support was a kernel-mode subset of the C
runtime library.  What does that say about whether _C_ "had all the
mechanisms in place" for doing a device driver on Alpha (or has them
today on VAX)?

Any answers of course, discuss not the language, but the operating
system implementation.  Could the subset of Ada RTL code required
to fit into the device driver environment of a complex operating
system be brought into kernel mode ?  Certainly, just as the subset
provided (Alpha-only) for C could be expanded.

You will find that a large amount of Ada code supports "device drivers"
outside any commercial operating system at all, in embedded systems.

If you think knowledge of the language is a significant factor in
writing a device driver, you should give it a try.  I have written
Alpha VMS drivers in both C and Bliss (the former for political
reasons), and what I needed to know had much more to do with the
device and the particular OS arrangements for device drivers
than for the language.

I happen to believe that a shop deeply involved in writing VMS
device drivers (DEC presumably is the main example) could greatly
improve their quality and schedule adherence with device drivers
in Ada, but provision of such a library is their business decision
and not mine.  Since most of the time I am not writing VMS device
drivers, there are many items higher on my priority list of things
for them to do :-)

Larry Kilgallen

Re: which language

[Markus Kuhn]

"Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" <sysadm@zws.com> writes:
|> But Ada *is* old stuff. If it was going to take the entire universe
|> by storm, there would be some clouds already. It's not a mainstream
|> language, it's a niche language.

Ada95 is a brand new very young language. It does not have the
flaws of the original 1983 Ada language. It is only four (4)
years old. Ada95 has become a robust industrial-strength development
platform for Linux with open-source tools only within the last 12
months. Good GUI libraries (GtkAda, etc.) have only become available
a few months ago. Give it some time, and you will see that it will
flourish beautifully.

Yes, I also think that it was a marketing error to give the all new
object-oriented language Ada95 the same name as the old DoD language
Ada from 1983.

I don't ask you to use Ada95 yourself immediately. I just strongly object
to the reasons for which you seem to condemm Ada95, because they seem
very clearly to be based on ignornace and not on experience.

Ada95 is not the old obscure 1980 DoD niche language (although it
developed out of it), but one of the most promising general purpose
application and systems programming languages currently on the
market.

Download the GNU Ada95 development environment for Linux from

  http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/linux-ada/

in case you want to form your own opinion.

Markus

-- 
Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK
Email: mkuhn at acm.org,  WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>

Re: which language

[Tom Moran]

>>I can, will and often do gladly learn anything if I think it will help me
>>solve a problem better or faster, or if I think it's something damn fun to
>>know about.
> Those are exactly the reasons I learned Ada some years ago.
To expand slightly, the "damn fun" came when I wrote a parallel sort
(Knuth 5.2.2) using Ada's multitasking in 52 lines on a DOS PC.  My
first paying use of Ada was on the Macintosh:  the "WriteNow" word
processor needed import/export for the then new MS Word.  As an
experiment, I designed, wrote, and tested using Ada on the PC, then
when all was running, manually 'compiled' into C for the Mac
deliverable.  I found I'd solved the problem both better and faster.
Ada was so much more powerful than C - the attractions of power came
first, the spirit of good software engineering followed (sounds like
learning martial arts ;)
BTW, the very little work I've ever done for the DoD has been in
Neliac or C - not Ada.

Re: which language

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <87soagzcrt.fsf@bglbv.my-dejanews.com>, bglbv@my-dejanews.com writes:

> Just done a little bit of the promised research, enough to get the
> word that the BLISS and even MACRO-32 code is still there, and that
> according to answer VMS8 of the comp.os.vms FAQ:

VMS has a tradition of backward compatibility -- old programs and
command procedures continue to work.  This means it is best not
to rewrite code in another language without a _very_ good reason.

One of the most troublesome areas in recent years is when DEC
decided to convert the Mail program from one language to another.
Neither language was Ada, but as an Ada fan I would say that
most of the problems customers saw would still have occurred
in Ada, as they centered around implicit behaviour upon which
customers relied but which was not understood by those doing the
conversion.  Ada does have the advantage that most projects for
which it is chosen also use strong specifications.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: which language

[Mike12-]

In article <3707cf6e.1423004@news.pacbell.net>, tmoran@bix.com says...
 
>I found I'd solved the problem both better and faster.
>Ada was so much more powerful than C - the attractions of power came
>first, the spirit of good software engineering followed (sounds like
>learning martial arts ;)

No one is arguing that Ada is not a good languge. it is a very good 
language. The point is, it is commercially irrelevent. So for someone
to spend allot of time to learn it without being able to use it for work, 
seems like a waste of time, when one spend this time to learn a 
skill that will be actually used at work.

Java and C I can use at work, Ada I can not. It is a simple 
fact of life.

Mike
 

Re: which language

[Joseph P Vlietstra]

Mike12@ wrote:

> Show me the source code for one Ada device driver for any Unix or windows
> or Mac or VMS that is written in Ada.

We use Ada to write device drivers for our satellite flight software.
Of course, this is an application domain for which Ada is ideally suited.
Since we were on a roll, we decided to write the device drivers for a serial
I/O card
and 1553 card for Solaris 2.7 (or Solaris 7 in Sun parlance) in Ada 95.
Lesson learned:
-- It's just as easy to write a device driver in Ada 95 as in C
-- One can write klugy code in Ada 95 as well as C
-- It's much cheaper to wait for a manufacturer to release a device driver for
a
    new OS than to write one yourself
Our shop may be different, since we are comfortable coding in variety of
languages
(Ada, C, Fortran, Java, ...).  If anyone thinks writing a device driver in Ada
is difficult,
try writing one in Fortran.  (OK, Fortran/MACRO for VMS).

> So much for using Ada for system programming.

That's right.  Ada is great for systems programming.

Re: which language

[Andrew Dunkerton]

In article <m2soah3ukf.fsf@wf-rch.cirr.com>, Corey Minyard <minyard@acm.org>
writes
>Mike12@ writes:
>
>> In article <7e4lje$ko3$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>, mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk
says...
>>  
<snip>
>
>Umm, C has not been the dominant systems programming language for 30
>years.  It has not become dominant until the last 15 years or so.
>Before that is was assembly, PL/S (a variant of PL/I used by IBM), and
>a host of other languages.  I'm pretty sure VMS was not written in C.
>If memory serves me correctly,

1. I thought DEC had/used-to-have their own favourite in-house language called
Bliss-32
2. For the last 4 years I have been enrolling for the ADA course that Crawley 
College advertise every year, and every year only 2 people are interested and
the course never runs due to lack of interest !!. Now that I am perceived as past
the industry-?standard sell-by date (age-wise) I recognize a niche product when I
see it.  Better still, combine it with Positive Vetting and voila, plenty of work for
years to come.

> Windows was not done in C, but Pascal.
>Not NT, which I believe was done in C, but 3.1 and 95.  Was the Mac
>done in C?  I don't remember.
>
>And just because it has not been done doesn't mean it could not be
>done.  A JVM could easily be written in Ada.  Well, maybe not easily,
>but it would be no harder than with C and perhaps a little easier.
>

-- 
Andrew

Re: which language

[Mark Zenier]

In article <7e6udq$okd$1@toto.tig.com.au>,
Lewin A.R.W. Edwards <sysadm@zws.com> wrote:
>
>I can, will and often do gladly learn anything if I think it will help me
>solve a problem better or faster, or if I think it's something damn fun to
>know about. Ada does NOT fall inside those limits.
>

VHDL is a variation on Ada, so if you get serious about hardware design,
you'll learn Ada whether you want to or not.

Mark Zenier  mzenier@eskimo.com  mzenier@netcom.com  Washington State resident

Re: which language

[bglbv]

Corey Minyard <minyard@acm.org> writes:

> Umm, C has not been the dominant systems programming language for 30
> years.  It has not become dominant until the last 15 years or so.
> Before that is was assembly, PL/S (a variant of PL/I used by IBM), and
> a host of other languages.  I'm pretty sure VMS was not written in C.

I believe the first versions of VMS were written in a mix of BLISS and
macro assembler. And I seem to recall reading somewhere (use DejaNews to
track it down if you wish; I think the source was a reliable one) that
starting with VMS 4.0 (circa 1984) much of the new development was
done in... Ada 83. (DEC Ada was a new product back then, so it would
have made sense to exercise it heavily in-house.) I don't know what
they are using now that VMS has been ported to the Alpha: the BLISS-32
code is probably all gone, the Ada may or may not have survived.
I'll try to research this better the next time I'm online.

The "host of other languages" Corey mentions even includes FORTRAN
(pre-1977 at that!) When that's the only language your users will need
a compiler for, it's tempting to write the system in it as well.

> If memory serves me correctly, Windows was not done in C, but Pascal.
> Not NT, which I believe was done in C, but 3.1 and 95.  Was the Mac
> done in C?  I don't remember.

Are you saying that Windows 95 and NT4 have *no* code in common? I
would have thought otherwise. Accordingly, large portions of W95/W98
should be in C and C++. Whether that includes the kernel proper I
won't try to guess, but libraries and device drivers certainly.

If I had to guess, I'd say MacOS was done in (extended) Pascal. Based on
plausibility arguments rather than actual knowledge, so take it
with a grain of salt.

> And just because it has not been done doesn't mean it could not be
> done.  A JVM could easily be written in Ada.  Well, maybe not easily,
> but it would be no harder than with C and perhaps a little easier.
> 
> -- 
> Corey Minyard                   Internet:  minyard@acm.org
>   Work: minyard@nortelnetworks.com  UUCP:  minyard@wf-rch.cirr.com

Re: which language

[bglbv]

bglbv@my-dejanews.com writes:

> I believe the first versions of VMS were written in a mix of BLISS and
> macro assembler. And I seem to recall reading somewhere (use DejaNews to
> track it down if you wish; I think the source was a reliable one) that
> starting with VMS 4.0 (circa 1984) much of the new development was
> done in... Ada 83. (DEC Ada was a new product back then, so it would
> have made sense to exercise it heavily in-house.) I don't know what
> they are using now that VMS has been ported to the Alpha: the BLISS-32
> code is probably all gone, the Ada may or may not have survived.
> I'll try to research this better the next time I'm online.

Just done a little bit of the promised research, enough to get the
word that the BLISS and even MACRO-32 code is still there, and that
according to answer VMS8 of the comp.os.vms FAQ:

"In no particular order, OpenVMS components are implemented using Bliss, Macro,
Ada, PLI, VAX and DEC C, Fortran, UIL, VAX and Alpha SDL, Pascal, MDL, DEC C++,
DCL, Message, and Document.  And this is certainly not a complete list."

I couldn't find details on the history of Ada use in VMS development right
now. Yet I'm sure I've seen them at some point in the past.

Re: which language

[Pat Rogers]

<wester@nospam> wrote in message news:7e9ra4$er9@drn.newsguy.com...

<snip>

> Just get in with the flow, use C or C++ or Java or perl and join the
> crowds. It is easier that way. Your boss is happy, his boss is happy,
and
> who cares if the project is late, you are following the company rules,
and
> that is what matters at the end of the day. If the project is late, no
> one can blame yoy if you used C or C++, since that is what everyone
else
> does.


The reason why not to do that is called "professional integrity".

Re: which language

[Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen]

wester@nospam wrote:

> The people in charge (the managers) where most of work in the states
> do not know their ass from their head. You want us to explain to
> them a technical thing such as Ada vs C? vs Java? get real.

They should know basic economics. If something can be done with 1/3 the manpower
it would take with another approach it will require some arguing to go for the
most costly solution. A saving of 2/3 on the manpower budget for a project is
serious money. It would mean a serious competitive advantage for the company.

I believe that it is more likely that the technical people will object and find
reasons for not taking advantage of the new tool. The non-technical managers will
most likely go for the solution recomended by their technical advicers.


Greetings,

Re: which language

[Mike Silva]

Lewin A.R.W. Edwards wrote in message <7e6leo$l3a$1@toto.tig.com.au>...
>
>If there's one thing I can't stand it's language pedantry and style
>policing.

How exactly does enumerating the benefits of a language constitute the
above?  That *was* the point of the original question -- note the subject
line.

 There's no place for it in embedded engineering! The arguments pro
>Ada all sound suspiciously like linguistic racism to me.

What nonsense.  Perhaps you'll be seeing algorithmic child molestation in
this thread next.  Such language is simply a sign of either an inability or
a refusal to have rational discussions.

To add something constructive to the discussion (although I think
challenging preposterous language is also constructive), I began to learn
Ada95 recently, having decided that I wanted to add another tool to my
embedded toolbox and concluded that Ada was the best new skill I could
learn.  It is a delightfully expressive language, full of "goodies" for both
general purpose and embedded programming, and I intend to use it for my next
large embedded project here at work (where my boss is willing to listen to
arguments for improved quality and productivity).  I chose Ada knowing full
well all the urban myths surrounding it, and knowing that it wasn't a
"popular" language.  The quality and power of the language outweighed these
things for me.  All FWIW, of course.

Mike

Re: which language

[Steve O'Neill]

"Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" wrote:

> I'm 24, which (last time I checked) didn't *quite* qualify me for the
> geriatric ward. And my view on Ada is that it's absolutely no point >for ME to learn because all the systems I've ever been called upon to 
>build can be built very creditably and reliably using things I already 
>know, without requiring me to learn a line of some obscure pedantry 
>someone else (who has no idea of what I'm trying to do) calls "the 
>best" computer programming language.

Wow!  It's good to hear that you have learned everything and have every
tool that you will need for the rest of your professional life.  I stand
humbled in your presence.
 
> Also, in a goodly number of years researching ready-rolled algorithms 

Hmmm... at 24 I would suspect that 'goodly' is something < 10?  I
suggest that you come back to share your *informed* opinion when that
number gets somewhere above a dozen at least.

> - I'm seeing a pattern emerge here...

Patterns are everywhere... it depends on how you look for them.

>Even if it was the best thing since sliced bread, and even if its >complexity and lunacy are urban legends, they are SELF-FULFILLING urban 
>legends. 

Especially so with uninformed folk such as yourself propagating them...

> Why should I step out and use a product for which I will find no peer 
> or manufacturer support, and which forces me to jump through 
> unknowable learning curve hoops? Screw that.

You're right... better to use whatever tool Microsoft has this week.
 
> If there's one thing I can't stand it's language pedantry and style
> policing. There's no place for it in embedded engineering! 

Well, we can tell the victims this when an aircraft falls from the sky
because someone would rather not be saddled with language pedantry and
would rather be free to crash the flight control computer whenever they
damned well please.

>The arguments pro Ada all sound suspiciously like linguistic racism to 
>me.

Much like the pro-<substitute language of choice here> arguments

Re: which language

[Rufus V. Smith]

Lewin A.R.W. Edwards strongly opined in message
<7e6leo$l3a$1@toto.tig.com.au>...

>I'm 24, which (last time I checked) didn't *quite* qualify me for the
>geriatric ward. And my view on Ada is that it's absolutely no point for ME
>to learn because all the systems I've ever been called upon to build can be
>built very creditably and reliably using things I already know...

At the risk of begin "adequate" rather than "elegant".

>Also, in a goodly number of years researching ready-rolled algorithms for
>various projects, I have NEVER ONCE come across a single line of Ada
>sourcecode...

This is very true.  But how much Smalltalk, PL/1, SNOBOL, APL, FORTH
code do you run across?  They all have their milieus, and their uses.

For me the problem was the $$$ barrier of entry for an Ada compiler.

I had ordered the original green DOD manual for Ada as soon as it was off
the presses.  I loved the language just from reading the specs, though I
must
say I don't know what it has been developed into since those days (early
80's?)
But there were too many digits in the cost of the compilers at the time.

>Even if it was the best thing since sliced bread, and even if its
complexity
>and lunacy are urban legends, they are SELF-FULFILLING urban legends.

I can't see how complexity and lunacy will develop on their own where there
was none.

> Why should I step out and use a product for which I will find no peer or
>manufacturer support, and which forces me to jump through unknowable
>learning curve hoops? Screw that.


Unfortunately, I have to agree with this.

Also, from a managerial standpoint, how can we standardize on a system where
there is such a limited talent pool to hire from?

>If there's one thing I can't stand it's language pedantry and style
>policing. There's no place for it in embedded engineering!

If you are a programming team of 1 that may be true.  But if you have
multiple
developers or expect to support a  product down the road without the
original
developer or develop new products out of a code base, there most definitely
is a place for it.

> The arguments pro
> Ada all sound suspiciously like linguistic racism to me.

Language proponents are usually termed religious zealots or even fanatics,
but I've
never seen racist!

Wherefore the venom?

Re: which language

[Mike Silva]

Mike12@ wrote in message <7e6d74$h3a@drn.newsguy.com>...
>In article <7e4lje$ko3$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>, mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk says...
>
>>But Ada on the other hand has all the mechanisms in place that you
>>want to have for embedded and systems-level programming,
>
>your view of system programming must be different than mine.
>
>Show me the source code for one Ada device driver for any Unix or windows
>or Mac or VMS that is written in Ada.
>
>Show me an operating system that is written in Ada.
>
>Show me a server that is written in Ada.
>
>So much for using Ada for system programming.


Are you suggesting that Ada does not have "all the mechanisms in place that
you want to have for embedded and systems-level programming"?  Which such
mechanisms is it missing?  Seriously, if there are such mechanisms missing,
I need to know ASAP.

Mike

Re: which language

[P.S. Norby]

Rufus V. Smith wrote:
> 
> I'm glad there are still some Pascal fans out there.
> 
> Too bad C had to be so much fun.
> 

For which definition of fun?  Some people (apparently) think it's fun to
stay up all night hunting for obscure bugs.  Others find immense
pleasure in letting the language and compiler do some of the work, so
that we can have a life.

-- 
P.S. Norby

 "Software engineers are, in many ways, similar to normal people"

        --  Scott Adams

"No excuses.  No embarrassment.  No apologies...
 Ada -- the most trusted and powerful programming language
 on earth, or in space." -- S. Tucker Taft
 
\\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\ 
( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)
///    ///    ///    ///    ///    ///    ///    ///    /// 
(Speaking only for myself)

Re: which language

[P.S. Norby]

Tom Moran wrote:
> 
> >I'm 24, which (last time I checked) didn't *quite* qualify me for the
> >geriatric ward. And my view on Ada is that it's absolutely no point for ME
> >to learn because all the systems I've ever been called upon to build can be
> >built very creditably and reliably using things I already know,
>   Ah to be young and ignorant again. ;)  

You took the words right out of my mouth.
-- 
P.S. Norby

 "Software engineers are, in many ways, similar to normal people"

        --  Scott Adams

"No excuses.  No embarrassment.  No apologies...
 Ada -- the most trusted and powerful programming language
 on earth, or in space." -- S. Tucker Taft
 
\\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\ 
( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)
///    ///    ///    ///    ///    ///    ///    ///    /// 
(Speaking only for myself)

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Rufus V. Smith wrote:
> 
> > Why should I step out and use a product for which I will find no peer or
> >manufacturer support, and which forces me to jump through unknowable
> >learning curve hoops? Screw that.
> 
> Unfortunately, I have to agree with this.
> 
> Also, from a managerial standpoint, how can we standardize on a system where
> there is such a limited talent pool to hire from?
> 

You might consider this: First off, there are good quality Embedded Ada
compilers for lots of popular microprocessors. (Although one could
always wish for more!) Depending on your target, I think you will find
that there is no lack of manufacturer support or adequate tools for
getting the job done. As for "peer support" I don't know what to tell
you except that I have never had any trouble at all finding someone on
C.L.A. more than eager to help me out when I've had trouble. Most of us
are not only eager to demonstrate our superior knowledge of all things
technical :-), but also genuinely want to see others succeed in using
Ada. There is also SIGAda, the Public Ada Library,
http://www.adahome.com/ and lots of other sources to find help, existing
source code, vendors, tools, etc. There is probably a lot more out there
than most people think simply because they have not taken the time to
look. You might be pleasantly surprised.

As for "limited talent pool" I'd have to agree that there are probably
fewer native Ada speakers than there are, say, C speakers, but that
doesn't necessarily constitute a problem. What with the ready
availability of Ada95 compilers, lots of colleges have been using Ada
for intro and OO courses, so even if someone is primarily a C programmer
(for instance) there is a good probability that they have more than a
passing knowledge of Ada as well. Also, if they are any good at software
engineering, one would presume that they are educable. What with a
variety of training options available (everything from "RTFM" to on-line
courses to vendors eager to bring their training program to your shop
for a fee. See http://www.adahome.com/ if you're curious) it would seem
to me that for any significant project, you could rather quickly "roll
your own" Ada programmers. Let's face it: New hires are going to need
considerable training just on your own internal processes and corporate
culture. What's a few more hours learning a new programming language? If
the people you hire have any brains at all, learning enough Ada to be
able to do useful work should not be that difficult.



> Language proponents are usually termed religious zealots or even fanatics,
> but I've
> never seen racist!
> 
> Wherefore the venom?

You have to wonder, don't you!? I've encountered on any number of
occasions "Adaphobes" who have some sort of irrational fear/hatred of
Ada and want to attack the language, often without any real experience
using it. Maybe it was because the DoD tried to ram it down people's
throats. Maybe it was simply because it was associated with the DoD.
Maybe their mother's were terrified by the sticker price of an early Ada
compiler while carrying them :-)

You'd hope that otherwise educated people might just have enough
rationality to try to take a look at the language without preconceived
notions or looking for excuses to hate it. Ada is a perfectly fine
general purpose programming language with lots of innovative features
which often sets it above the crowd of other languages. If you can
program it in C or Cobol or Fortran or Java or <insert language here>,
there is a way of doing the same thing in Ada - often with a cleaner,
more elegant solution. For those willing to approach the language with
an open mind, there is a lot to be gained and learned. 

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Mike Silva wrote:
> 
> Mike12@ wrote in message <7e6d74$h3a@drn.newsguy.com>...
> >In article <7e4lje$ko3$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>, mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk says...
> >
> >>But Ada on the other hand has all the mechanisms in place that you
> >>want to have for embedded and systems-level programming,
> >
> >your view of system programming must be different than mine.
> >
> >Show me the source code for one Ada device driver for any Unix or windows
> >or Mac or VMS that is written in Ada.
> >
> >Show me an operating system that is written in Ada.
> >
> >Show me a server that is written in Ada.
> >
> >So much for using Ada for system programming.
> 
> Are you suggesting that Ada does not have "all the mechanisms in place that
> you want to have for embedded and systems-level programming"?  Which such
> mechanisms is it missing?  Seriously, if there are such mechanisms missing,
> I need to know ASAP.
> 
While there may not be tons of widespread usage of Ada for writing
device drivers, operating systems, etc. - mostly by virtue of historic
dominance of C in this area - that does not at all mean that Ada cannot
be used for these purposes or that it is not used for these purposes.
Volume - or lack thereof - does not constitute proof that something
cannot be done.

I've got at least three "operating systems" written in Ada floating
around in embedded engine controls lying somewhere around the shop here.
I hear that the RTEMS kernel is written in Ada. If you count all the
software running on bare board computers that are programmed in Ada,
there are *lots* of "operating systems" written in Ada.

Device drivers: Do them all day long in Ada - at least four or five of
them before breakfast. :-) Granted, the ones I do, aren't as easy to do
as those for which you have some COTS "operating system" as a crutch.
Mine have to read/write devices with very hard real time constraints and
absolutely, positively cannot fail. It is hard to believe that if I've
got to write device drivers for such a hard environment that easing up
on the restrictions would somehow make the language incompetent. I'm
also very sure that I'm not the only one writing interfaces to A/D
converters, UARTs, Mil-Std-1553a busses, etc. where the language of
choice is Ada.

As for a server written in Ada - well, I'm not sure what you would count
as a "server". If my lonely little old engine control has to respond to
inquiries from a weapons system along its 1553 mux, does that count? Or
if a radio system programmed in Ada has to respond to Mark IV IFF
inquiries from a tower, does that count?

Mike: I realize that you're probably with me on this one. Its a shame to
think that Ada is not seriously considered a "systems programming"
language when all the facilities are there to do that sort of work. That
it may not be used with as much frequency as C for this purpose should
not detract from the fact that it can and does do this kind of work on a
daily basis.

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Re: which language

[Scott A. Moore]

In article <7e4nme$ko3$2@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>
mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk (Markus Kuhn) wrote:


> Ada is unfortunately the language on which elderly people who have never
> used it have the strongest opinions. It seems to be commonly accepted that

Eh, sonny ? Speak up.....

Never used it, looked at it once. Bleech, complex.

C. A. Hoare did a write up on it once. Mr. Hoare is the inventor
of "quicksort", has been in computing *forever* (perhaps he is the old
guy you meant), and attended the early meetings held by the military
to design Ada. According to his description, the idea started out as
a military version of Pascal. The idea of simply using Pascal was
discussed and dropped, then they went off on their own, designing
an increasingly complex language until Mr. Hoare dropped out of
the discussions in disgust.

Undoubtedly more folks are going to malign your perfect language that
no one seems to want to use. Please use the following handy-dandy
form to reply to same:

[] - You, sir, have obviously never used YOUR LANGUAGE HERE.

[] - You, sir, obviously don't know much about languages.

[] - What rock *did* you crawl out from under ?

[] - Say, you must have personal problems to malign YOUR LANGUAGE HERE.

[] - All of the above.

[] - Some of the above.

[] - Selected elements of the above.

                                [sam]

The year 2000. The stock market hitting 10,000.
These events prove once and for all that we
have ten fingers......

Re: which language

[Scott A. Moore]

In article <fxt4smxyul4.fsf@isolde.engr.sgi.com>
Matt Austern <austern@sgi.com> wrote:

;> samiam@cisco.com (Scott A. Moore) writes:
;> 
;>> The two sure signs of a loser language is that
;>> 
;>> A. It was designed by a comittee.
;>> 
;>> B. It was designed to encoporate *everything* that was considered
;>> state of the art at the time of design.
;>> 
;>> Famous examples include pl/1, ada, Cobol, etc.
;>> 
;>> I would put ANSI C++ in the "designed by comittee" section.
;>> Most of the successful ones, C, lisp, Java etc., were designed by
;>> an individual or small group to solve a restricted problem.
;>> 
;>> Finally, we are pretty sure that Fortran was never designed by
;>> anyone. Theories include evolution, random chance, and "it was
;>> a virus sent here from another species".
;> 
;> What conceivable definition of success could classify Cobol, C++, and
;> Fortran as unsuccessful languages?  Fortran and Cobol are dominant in
;> their (large and important) niches.  C++ isn't quite as successful as
;> those two, but it's also several decades younger.
;> 

You said it. They are nitch languages. C++, although I would argue
it is not as widespread as the press would have you believe
(neither is Java), seems to be a going concern. However, I defy
anyone to come forward with a ANSI C++ implementation. By that I mean
a FULL, COMPLETE implementation. I printed out the C++ standard draft.
It gives you a hernia just to lift. The folks doing that standard
got way way [way] out of control, and the language is simply
unmanagable now.

Is there really any doubt that C is the most common language ?
I'll bet basic is #2. That's the real world folks. I am not even
A C avocate. But if I didn't know C like the back of my hand,
I would starve.

                                     [sam]


The year 2000. The stock market hitting 10,000.
These events prove once and for all that we
have ten fingers......

Re: which language

[Scott A. Moore]

In article <ePWVaIef#GA.325@nih2naaa.prod2.compuserve.com>
"Michael Garrett" <michaelgarrett@csi.com> wrote:

> I think converstations about Java should start seperating the language from
> its output. Products are becoming available such as Diab FastJ, which
> generate very fast native code. For embedded applications, you do not always
> need the JVM. I think Cygnus is working on a Java front end for gcc also.
> 
> Michael Garrett
> 

Back it up. Where are the benchmarks that show Java performing as good
as say, gcc ? A java front end for gcc might not even accomplish that,
if the result has more overhead than C.

I'll look at any language that has a high performance compiler
mated to it. Me, I consider getting better code to be prime importance.
I seem to be the only one though.

                                     [sam]

The year 2000. The stock market hitting 10,000.
These events prove once and for all that we
have ten fingers......

Re: which language

[Scott A. Moore]

In article <m2soah3ukf.fsf@wf-rch.cirr.com>
Corey Minyard <minyard@acm.org> wrote:

> 
> To really do anything in any operating system, you have to have
> everything eventually go to assembly calls.  So using your logic, C
> cannot be a systems programming language either, only assembly can
> truly be a systems programming language.
> 

Not true. There are many systems that never reach that level. I have
even worked on a multitasking kernal for x86 that was completely
written in C (it used the fact that a routine tagged "interrupt"
saves all registers.

Most os formulations now in use do direct OS calls in C. The windows
API is direct call via C.

                                      [sam]


The year 2000. The stock market hitting 10,000.
These events prove once and for all that we
have ten fingers......

Re: which language

[Pat Rogers]

Scott A. Moore <samiam@cisco.com> wrote in message
news:7eastg$m2e$1@news-sj-3.cisco.com...

<snip>

> C. A. Hoare did a write up on it once. Mr. Hoare is the inventor
> of "quicksort", has been in computing *forever* (perhaps he is the old
> guy you meant), and attended the early meetings held by the military
> to design Ada. According to his description, the idea started out as
> a military version of Pascal. The idea of simply using Pascal was
> discussed and dropped, then they went off on their own, designing
> an increasingly complex language until Mr. Hoare dropped out of
> the discussions in disgust.

You're a bit out of date on this.  Hoare was unhappy with Ada 80, a
draft of what became Ada 83.  He eventually got happier, because he
wrote a very favorable foreword to an Ada textbook.

Re: which language

[Mike Silva]

Marin David Condic wrote in message <3708F9B5.C1740859@pwfl.com>...

>>>So much for using Ada for system programming.

>Mike: I realize that you're probably with me on this one. Its a shame to
>think that Ada is not seriously considered a "systems programming"
>language when all the facilities are there to do that sort of work. That
>it may not be used with as much frequency as C for this purpose should
>not detract from the fact that it can and does do this kind of work on a
>daily basis.


No, I'm really in a bit of a panic on this.  I thought all those tens of
millions of lines of realtime/embedded Ada code out there meant I could do
systems programming with Ada, but if that's not the case then I need to stop
learning it right away!  Darn those folks at comp.lang.ada, www.adahome.com,
etc; they really had me buffalo'ed for a while...

Mike

Re: which language

[Everett M. Greene]

In article <3707cf6e.1423004@news.pacbell.net> tmoran@bix.com (Tom Moran) writes:
> >>I can, will and often do gladly learn anything if I think it will help me
> >>solve a problem better or faster, or if I think it's something damn fun to
> >>know about.
> > Those are exactly the reasons I learned Ada some years ago.
> To expand slightly, the "damn fun" came when I wrote a parallel sort
> (Knuth 5.2.2) using Ada's multitasking in 52 lines on a DOS PC.  My
> first paying use of Ada was on the Macintosh:  the "WriteNow" word
> processor needed import/export for the then new MS Word.  As an
> experiment, I designed, wrote, and tested using Ada on the PC, then
> when all was running, manually 'compiled' into C for the Mac
> deliverable.  I found I'd solved the problem both better and faster.
> Ada was so much more powerful than C - the attractions of power came
> first, the spirit of good software engineering followed (sounds like
> learning martial arts ;)
> BTW, the very little work I've ever done for the DoD has been in
> Neliac or C - not Ada.
  ^^^^^^
You're telling your age!

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Everett M. Greene   (The Mojave Greene, crotalus scutulatus scutulatus)
Ridgecrest, Ca. 93555           Path: mojaveg@ridgecrest.ca.us

Re: which language

[David Starner]

"Scott A. Moore" wrote:
> 
> In article <7e4nme$ko3$2@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>
> mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk (Markus Kuhn) wrote:
> 
> > Ada is unfortunately the language on which elderly people who have never
> > used it have the strongest opinions. It seems to be commonly accepted that
> 
> Eh, sonny ? Speak up.....
> 
> Never used it, looked at it once. Bleech, complex.
I try not malign any languages I'm unfamilair with. You can't be familar
the language until you've at least wrote something in it. If you aren't
familar with a language, why should we care about your opinion? "We
should go stop those Slavs in Asia from killing each other." "Uh, sir,
the former Yugoslavia is in Europe." "Well, I'm still right."

Less complex than:
Fortran 90
Recent Cobol versions
C++
Extended Pascal

On comparable complexity with 
C

More complex than:
Minimal Basic
Minimal Pascal
Java (sans libraries)

Do you really use one of the languages Ada's more complex than?

> C. A. Hoare did a write up on it once. Mr. Hoare is the inventor
> of "quicksort", has been in computing *forever* (perhaps he is the old
> guy you meant), and attended the early meetings held by the military
> to design Ada. 
I get the feeling Hoare would prefer I use a Wirthian language, many of
which I've looked at, and chosen not to use because they lack the
features I need. Why should I listen to what you need, or Hoare thinks I
need?

> According to his description, the idea started out as
> a military version of Pascal. The idea of simply using Pascal was
> discussed and dropped, then they went off on their own, designing
> an increasingly complex language until Mr. Hoare dropped out of
> the discussions in disgust.
You mean "the whole program goes into one file" Basic Pascal? Or
compiler specific enhanced Pascal? The only successful language that was
simple enough for Hoare and Wirth was Pascal, and that was promptly
extended. "Hoare thinks of small solutions for big problems. Big
problems need big solutions." Ichabid, I believe.

-- 
David Starner - OSU student - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
If you want a real optimist, look up Ray Bradbury. Guy's nuts. 
He actually likes people. -David Brin

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Mike Silva wrote:
> 
> No, I'm really in a bit of a panic on this.  I thought all those tens of
> millions of lines of realtime/embedded Ada code out there meant I could do
> systems programming with Ada, but if that's not the case then I need to stop
> learning it right away!  Darn those folks at comp.lang.ada, www.adahome.com,
> etc; they really had me buffalo'ed for a while...
> 
I often get a kick out of being told that what I do every day for a
living is a) impossible and b) a skill that nobody ever pays anybody to
use.

Learn to do the impossible. It always give a good deal of job
satisfaction. And since the world is filled with people who can't/won't
do the impossible, you know there will always be a niche for you to
fill!

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Re: which language

[Pete Drazenski]

> I'm
> also very sure that I'm not the only one writing interfaces to A/D
> converters, UARTs, Mil-Std-1553a busses, etc. where the language of
> choice is Ada.

We have written plenty of drivers for A/D's , UART's etc in C and linked them
to Ada OS source for embedded systems. The real key is to get it right the 1st
time as these drivers should be pulled from a  library for new applications.

Re: which language

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <7eauf6$mi6$1@news-sj-3.cisco.com>, samiam@cisco.com (Scott A. Moore) writes:

> Most os formulations now in use do direct OS calls in C. The windows
> API is direct call via C.

All VMS OS calls are accessible from any languages, as has been the
case for 20 years.

The Windows API is also directly callable by non-C languages, as
compilers aimed at Windows have adapted to generate kludges like
zero terminated strings.  The compiler I am most familiar with in
this regard is ObjectAda from Aonix.  Most programmers would prefer
to call higher level routines than the Windows API, but that has more
to do with the level of abstraction (or not) in the API than its C-
centric nature.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: which language

[Dave Hansen]

On 3 Apr 1999 09:40:30 GMT, mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk (Markus Kuhn) wrote:

[...]
>The Ada95 standard without the library annexes is only 248 pages
>long. Compare this with C++ or Java (or worst of all with ISO C 9X!).

Ummm, if you remove the library section and annexes from the latest
draft of C9X, it weighs in at a pudgy 162 pages.  To be fair, Annex D
(Universal Character Names for Identifiers) is normative, and should
be added back in.  Make that 164 pages.

Not that I dislike Ada (I even bought the Meridian compiler back about
10 years ago).  But I think it's a fallacy to consider it a simpler
language than C, or even C9X.  And it's easier to find C compilers for
the 8051.  Or even Modula-2!

Regards,

                          -=Dave
Just my (10-010) cents
I can barely speak for myself, so I certainly can't speak for B-Tree.
Change is inevitable.  Progress is not.

Re: which language

[Emil Rojas]

"Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen" wrote:

> There is a project implemented in 3 languages; Ada, Asssembler and C. All are
> completed on time; 12 months. Size of project; 2000 function points. The Ada
> project is completed with 1/3 the manpower of either of the other two
> projects.
>
>

Unfortunately, this is only relevent if the programming resource were
equivelent!

Re: which language

[Matthew Heaney]

Mike12- <Mike12-@newsguy.com> writes:

> No one is arguing that Ada is not a good languge. it is a very good 
> language. The point is, it is commercially irrelevent. So for someone
> to spend allot of time to learn it without being able to use it for work, 
           ^^^^^

The expression "a lot" is spelled with two words.

Re: which language

[Jim (from Oz)]

On Mon, 05 Apr 1999 00:57:10 GMT, Matthew Heaney
<matthew_heaney@acm.org> wrote:

>Mike12- <Mike12-@newsguy.com> writes:
>
>> No one is arguing that Ada is not a good languge. it is a very good 
>> language. The point is, it is commercially irrelevent. So for someone
>> to spend allot of time to learn it without being able to use it for work, 
>           ^^^^^
>
>The expression "a lot" is spelled with two words.

The word PRAT is spelled "prat". Don't be one.

Jim (from Oz)

Re: which language

[Tom Moran]

>Java and C I can use at work, Ada I can not. It is a simple 
>fact of life.
Well why didn't you say so at the beginning.  If there's a rule
against Ada, even during design (as opposed to deliverables), at your
company, and you have no plans to leave such a company, then I agree,
Ada is completely irrelevant to you.  I suppose if one worked for a
company where everyone used pliers, and wrenches were outlawed, and
you had no wish or plan to change companies (in either sense) then
indeed learning to use a wrench would only cause frustration and
unhappiness.  Best stick with doing things the way your boss has
always done them.
  Sounds to me awfully boring, and less likely to continue
uneventfully on till retirement than you seem to think, but to each
his own.

Re: which language

[Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen]

Mike12- wrote:

> language. The point is, it is commercially irrelevent. So for someone
> to spend allot of time to learn it without being able to use it for work,
> seems like a waste of time, when one spend this time to learn a
> skill that will be actually used at work.
>
> Java and C I can use at work, Ada I can not. It is a simple
> fact of life.
>

Have a look at the article "Ada Use in Europe" in the April 1995 issue of
CrossTalk (http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/CrossTalk/). Take a look at the
section named "Highlights of Ada Experiences".

There is a project implemented in 3 languages; Ada, Asssembler and C. All are
completed on time; 12 months. Size of project; 2000 function points. The Ada
project is completed with 1/3 the manpower of either of the other two
projects.

Coding error comparisons:

Where error found    Ada  Assembler  C
Code walktrough      12   240        unknown
Integration           2    40        50

I think that the people in charge of the economics where you work will want
to know why you are wasting precious resouces coding in C if you can do it in
Ada.


Greetings,

Re: which language

[wester]

In article <37085B6B.65AD2A77@online.no>, "Tarjei says...
 
>There is a project implemented in 3 languages; Ada, Asssembler and C. All are
>completed on time; 12 months. Size of project; 2000 function points. The Ada
>project is completed with 1/3 the manpower of either of the other two
>projects.
>
>Coding error comparisons:
>
>Where error found    Ada  Assembler  C
>Code walktrough      12   240        unknown
>Integration           2    40        50
>
>I think that the people in charge of the economics where you work will want
>to know why you are wasting precious resouces coding in C if you can do it in
>Ada.
 
The people in charge (the managers) where most of work in the states 
do not know their ass from their head. You want us to explain to 
them a technical thing such as Ada vs C? vs Java? get real.

You can show them all the charts in the world it won't make a difference.

Just get in with the flow, use C or C++ or Java or perl and join the 
crowds. It is easier that way. Your boss is happy, his boss is happy, and
who cares if the project is late, you are following the company rules, and
that is what matters at the end of the day. If the project is late, no
one can blame yoy if you used C or C++, since that is what everyone else
does.

regards,
Wester.

Re: which language

[Chris Hills]

In article <7e7i43$3lf$1@toto.tig.com.au>, Lewin A.R.W. Edwards 
>
>Perhaps we should re-examine who is approaching this problem with a mature
>cost-benefit attitude and who is exhibiting kneejerk bigotry at the thought
>that someone dares to challenge the One True Faith?

Look in the mirror. 

Most people here are arguing for a broad approach. It is you who said
that Ada is not commercially relevant. I have never used Ada but I
would not even dare to suggest that it is, as you said "commercially
irrelevant".  I have learnt several more languages than the ones I work in
and have learnt useful things from all of them (Including COBOL!)

Your arguments clearly show you are young and know a little. Save this
thread and re-read it in 10 years time.

BTW my goldfish think that salt water is irrelevant and not used in real
fish tanks.....

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\  Chris Hills          Staffs /\/\/\/\/\/
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\     England      /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Re: which language

[Jerry van Dijk]

Let's try to answer the question in the implicit in the subject.

Answer: use the language best suited to the problem domain at hand and 
the development environment & skills already in place. Change the latter two
if the first justifies it.

--
-- Jerry van Dijk | Leiden, Holland
-- Team Ada       | jdijk@acm.org
-- see http://stad.dsl.nl/~jvandyk

Re: which language

[Richard D Riehle]

In article <7eastg$m2e$1@news-sj-3.cisco.com>,
	samiam@cisco.com (Scott A. Moore) wrote:

>C. A. Hoare did a write up on it once. Mr. Hoare is the inventor
>of "quicksort", has been in computing *forever* (perhaps he is the old
>guy you meant), and attended the early meetings held by the military
>to design Ada. According to his description, the idea started out as
>a military version of Pascal. The idea of simply using Pascal was
>discussed and dropped, then they went off on their own, designing
>an increasingly complex language until Mr. Hoare dropped out of
>the discussions in disgust.

 Here is the text of Mr. Hoare's foreward to an Ada book in 1987.  You
 may judge for yourself whether he was as anti-Ada as you suggest.

 C.A.R. Hoare's comments in the foreward to Ada Language and Methodology

"  'I enjoyed reading the Algol 60 report;  it taught me a lot about programming.'  This 
is the comment of a data processing manager of a major motor manufacturing company,
who had no conceivable prospect of ever using the language to program a computer. It is
a most perceptive comment, because it describes an important goal in the design of a new 
programming language:  that it should be an aid in specification, description, and design of
programs, as well as in the construction of reliable code.

This was one of the main aims in the design of the language which was later given the name
Ada.  As a result, the language incorporates many excellent structural features which have
proved their value in many precursor languages such as Pascal and Pascal Plus.

The combination of many complex features into a single language has led to an unfortunate
delay in availability of production-quality implementations.  But the long wait is coming to
an end, and one can now look forward to a rapid and widespread improvement in programming
practice, both from those who use the language and from those who study its concepts and structures.

I hope that this book will contribute directly to these ideals, which have inspired many of the other
books in the same series. It continues the tradition of the series in that it describes how the language
can be used as the target of sound programming methodology, embracing the full life-cycle of a programming
project.  It explains not just the features and details of the language, but also their purpose
and method of effective use.

The complexities and difficulties are not glossed over;  they are explained within the appropriate context,
with hints on how to avoid any consequent problems.  I hope the book will be useful, both to those who have the
privilege or obligation to use the language, and to those who have the interest and curiosity to understand and
appreciate its rationale. "

               from the foreward to Ada Language and Methodology
                                                 David A. Watt, Brian A. Wichmann, and William Findlay,
                                                 Prentice-Hall International Series in Computer Science ISBN 0-13-004078-9
                                                 Published in 1987  
 

Re: which language

[Philip Preston]

Lewin A.R.W. Edwards wrote in message <7e6leo$l3a$1@toto.tig.com.au>...

>If there's one thing I can't stand it's language pedantry and style
>policing.

That's two  :-)

Philip Preston.

Re: which language

[Chris Hills]

In article <7eaq7n$t6a$1@news8.svr.pol.co.uk>, Philip Preston
<philip@preston20.freeserve.co.uk> writes
>Lewin A.R.W. Edwards wrote in message <7e6leo$l3a$1@toto.tig.com.au>.
>..
>
>>If there's one thing I can't stand it's language pedantry and style
>>policing.
>
>That's two  :-)

Not only that it is a complaint about language pedantry  from someone
who is refusing to look at a language because it's not relevant to him
(before he's looked at it). Pots and kettles?

Besides Mr Edwards seems to be the only one here spouting language
pedantry. The rest of the posters are suggesting an open mind.

I have programed in C++. I have never seen smalltalk used (it is a dying
language, commercially,  from what I can see)  however I learnt a lot
about OOP from the time I had to do smalltalk on an MSc course.  The
same is true of the ADA I had to study.  I learn't a lot but don't use the
language directly.

I did not learn  Smalltalk, Pascal, ADA, COBOL, VDM (ouch!),
BASIC, Mod2 and Forth to the same level I understand the main
languages I use but they were all useful to look at. This is in much the
same way as I looked at various CPU architecture other than the main
ones I use.  Background knowledge is always very useful.

If you are programming in OO you should look at the other mainstream
OO languages.  ADA is as mainstream as Java and C++

If you think that ADA is not main stream then you have a very blinkered
view of the world. ADA regularly appears in the top half of required
skills surveys. 

Ada is very widely used in the embedded  field. Obviously you do not
work in the embedded field. That or you are totally blinkered. 

regards

        Chris


BTW the IEE generally regards graduates (at 22 ) as needing 4-6 years
(minimum) of additional formal training whilst at work before they can
apply to be a Chartered Engineer because they just do not have the
experience and breadth on knowledge required.
  
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\  Chris Hills          Staffs /\/\/\/\/\/
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\     England      /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Re: which language

[marc.a.criley]

Lewin A.R.W. Edwards wrote:
> 
> You would have no idea whatsoever of my age if I hadn't stated it
> explicitly. Don't try to patronize me; you aren't arguing from a
> sufficiently secure position to get away with it.
> 
> -- Lewin A.R.W. Edwards <http://www.zws.com/>
> Realtime/Embedded Programmer & Embedded HW Eng

When I was 24 I had worked on two major projects.  One was a VHDL
compiler and the other was an AN/UYK-43 emulator, operating at the
instruction set/memory/register level.  It was clear to me that I
was blowing away the dinosaurs I was surrounded by and that I had
the juice to tackle and crush any technical task set before me.

Now, over a dozen years later I think back and cringe at my youthful
hubris (though that is, of course, a hallmark of the young).  With
what little shallow, narrowly-focused technical experience I had at
that time, I really had just barely gotten my metaphorical thumb out
of my ear.  Oh I knew my **** alright, but believing that knowledge
now qualified me to weigh in expertly on any technical problem that
touched my domain of knowledge was ridiculous folly.

So this change of heart must've been caused by career setbacks and
disappointments, that have left me disillusioned and bitter, yes?
Oh, quite the contrary.  From that pretentious start I've had the
opportunity to work on aeronautical analysis tools, OO design tools,
the realtime exec of a high-fidelity flight simulator, and do a
clean-sheet redesign of a core component (one of three) of a major
weapon control system.  On the side I worked on commercial video
titling and effects products.  And as my career has progressed to
consistently bigger and better things, I become increasingly
embarrassed when I consider my youthful arrogance and how totally
(and misguidedly) convinced I was of my all-encompassing competence
in wares soft.

So, Mr. Edwards, I do patronize you, because I have earned the right.
From what I learn of your attitudes and abilities through your
postings, I see myself at your age.  This is a horror to you, I know,
it certainly would have been to me, many years ago.  You will most
likely grow out of it, but you should take the advice of the
individual who suggested you reread this thread in ten year's time, as
you too will discover just how much these old dinosaurs have "learned"
as _you_ got older.

Marc A. Criley
Chief Software Architect
Lockheed Martin M&DS
(610) 354-7861
marc.a.criley@lmco.com

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Lewin A.R.W. Edwards wrote:
> 
> > getting the job done. As for "peer support" I don't know what to tell
> > you except that I have never had any trouble at all finding someone on
> > C.L.A. more than eager to help me out when I've had trouble. Most of us
> 
> Peer support is a lot more than this. Peer support is being able to dip into
> a vast repository of fairly-debugged sourcecode. The available sourcecode
> base for Ada is not going to match C/C++ for decades, even if everyone
> starts using the language today.
> 
I'll agree that there are more lines of code in C (maybe even C++) than
Ada, but how many lines of code do you need? There are easily millions -
probably billions of lines of Ada that have been written and are in
operational programs today. (I'm bookeeping about 1.1msloc of Ada just
here in my little Ada shop in Florida - there's a lot more out there
than just this.)  "fairly-debugged"? If you never put the bugs in, you
never have to take them out. :-) How important is this? Not very, IMHO.
You need libraries of tools, to a point, and Ada has that if you're
willing to look a little. You need some books and examples available of
proper usage of syntax & semantics - mostly while learning the language.
Beyond that, the mission is not to stare at someone else's code, but to
develop new code. You don't need trillions of lines of existing code to
do that - just imagination and some programming skills.

> > courses to vendors eager to bring their training program to your shop
> > for a fee.
> 
> Ah, goody. Let's throw some more money down the tubes while we're at it. Are
> you a politican, by any chance?
> 
Are they teaching rudeness in college these days or do you just have a
natural tallent? I don't recall saying anything nasty about you. I don't
even think my remarks on this subject were anything but evenhanded and
reasonable. Why do you find it necessary to attack me personally?

Here's a little fact of life in any but the most trivial projects:
You're going to pay for training. The question is, do you want it to be
specific, targeted and efficient or do you want it the expensive way -
training by stubbing your toes, shooting yourself in the foot and
perhaps even failure? We've done any number of projects around here
where the machine architecture, the programming language, the DBMS, the
support tools, or any combination of the above have been brandy-new and
*nobody* knew Jack-defication about them. You either spend a couple of
weeks sitting down with the manual and banging away at the keyboard or
you go to a course or you read a book, but you spend time and money
learning something new. "Money down the tubes"? Not if the project is a
success and not if it hangs around for any length of time.


> > your own" Ada programmers. Let's face it: New hires are going to need
> > considerable training just on your own internal processes and corporate
> > culture. What's a few more hours learning a new programming language? If
> 
> Oh sure - what's a few years spent porting everything to Ada? Nothing at
> all. If you happen to be IBM, that is...
> 
Who said anything about porting everything to Ada? We have not now, nor
will we ever, port an engine control program from the original language
it was written in. The verification alone is absolutely prohibitive.
Your existing systems remain what they are and are maintained in the
language they are in *forever*. If the system is ever "ported" in any
sense of the word, it is because it is declared defunct and you
reengineer it from the ground up. Almost never, in the real world, do
you do any sort of line-for-line translation from one language to
another. There's hardly ever a reason you'd want to do that. You don't
need to be an MBA to figure out that spending money translating a
perfectly good system from one language into another is not cost
effective. 


> > You'd hope that otherwise educated people might just have enough
> > rationality to try to take a look at the language without preconceived
> > notions or looking for excuses to hate it. Ada is a perfectly fine
> 
> Otherwise educated people are too busy earning a living with their current
> skillset and pursuing *related* learning avenues to bother with
> side-tracking down a corridor that leads to an unknowable destination
> through a lot of expensive tollways. (The tollways being labeled,
> "Opportunity Cost" on one side and "Time Wasted" on the other).
> 
People who are too busy "earning a living" to learn anything new are
going to end up stuck in a corner maintaining some old legacy system for
the entire rest of their professional careers while those who do bother
to learn new things will be the ones designing the new systems and
inventing the future. Even when you have no immediate practical need to
learn some new language, doing so gives you insights into language
design and new techniques. Its called "fundamental research".

I think the question ought to be do you want to follow the crowd or do
you want to define the future? I've made my choice.


> If I was a Professor of Computer Language Pedantry somewhere (with a Masters
> degree in Real-World Dissociation and Commercial Ignorance), being paid to
> woffle about academic issues, then I could legitimately take time out from
> woffling on C, C++, Java and asm, and research Ada so I could woffle about
> that some.
> 
> If I was a student, I could probably find time out from shooting up and
> participating in drunken sex parties, sober up for a while, maybe skip a
> Politically Correct Neo-Marxist Non-Fascists Against Land Rights and Uranium
> Mining for Disabled Gay Cuddly Native Animals meeting, and take a peek at
> Ada - probably through a keyhole in the womens' showers.
> 
> As I'm neither of these things, I'll just get on with the job of coding in
> the languages I know, which is what I was hired to do.
> 

I'm hired to make money for the stockholders. I do that by designing
engine controls and support software/tools. Part of that process is
dreaming up better ways of doing the job, trying new things to find out
if there are benefits to be had, keeping up with what is happening in
the rest of the world, contributing something to the industry to help
make sure there is a future for it, etc. etc. If I saw my job as simply
being a "coder" then I suppose I'd have your attitude and stick to
studying my C programmer's manual so that I'd be really expert in arcane
C rituals. I choose not to limit myself that way.

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Pete Drazenski wrote:
> 
> We have written plenty of drivers for A/D's , UART's etc in C and linked them
> to Ada OS source for embedded systems. The real key is to get it right the 1st
> time as these drivers should be pulled from a  library for new applications.

Maybe I'm a little lost. An "Ada OS" with "C" drivers? Why would you not
simply write the drivers in Ada? (Unless, you were perhaps dealing with
some very old and limited compiler?) 

I agree about getting it right the first time. The low level routines
have to work flawlessly or you just waste time chasing mysterious
intermittent bugs while trying to develop the higher level logic.

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Re: which language

[Scott A. Moore]

In article <7e9ra4$er9@drn.newsguy.com>
wester@nospam wrote:

> In article <37085B6B.65AD2A77@online.no>, "Tarjei says...
>  
>>There is a project implemented in 3 languages; Ada, Asssembler and C. All are
>>completed on time; 12 months. Size of project; 2000 function points. The Ada
>>project is completed with 1/3 the manpower of either of the other two
>>projects.
>>
>>Coding error comparisons:
>>
>>Where error found    Ada  Assembler  C
>>Code walktrough      12   240        unknown
>>Integration           2    40        50
>>

Actually, I am not particularly a C fan, but if you look at the history
of microcomputers, the fact that C is the language of choice makes
perfect sense. The reason being that it was not that long ago we were trying
to convince programmers to stop using assembler, and start using a HLL.
I don't think anyone would argue that C is the closest language to assembler.

Is C that bad ? Its a very simple language, which probally goes a long way
towards the reason C++ has not completely taken over.

A good parallel is the english language, which is paramount because it has
absorbed everything interesting from other languages....

                                [sam]

The year 2000. The stock market hitting 10,000.
These events prove once and for all that we
have ten fingers......

Re: which language

[Pete Drazenski]

> Maybe I'm a little lost. An "Ada OS" with "C" drivers? Why would you not
> simply write the drivers in Ada? (Unless, you were perhaps dealing with
> some very old and limited compiler?)

As we reuse the same A/D , UART , Bus I/F , etc across different applications the1st
choice is to typically "steal/borrow" these proven drivers for new applications. Of
course we would rewrite in Ada if necessary , however the originals were written in
C.

>

Re: which language

[Steve Rencontre]

On Fri, 02 Apr 1999 21:02:57 GMT, aerosoft@agt.net wrote:

>BASIC is probably still the most widely used and most portable language
>for general business apllications. 

Say that again?

MS Visual Basic is undoubtedly very widely used, but portable?
Methinks thou jest! Historically, Basic has always been one of the
/least/ portable languages around - /everyone/ extended it in
different directions! And I don't know any other variant of Basic that
is even a fraction as widespread as VB.

--
Steve Rencontre, Design Consultant
http://www.rsn-tech.demon.co.uk/  --  remember to despam return address

Re: which language

[Steve Rencontre]

On Sun, 4 Apr 1999 19:03:40 GMT, mzenier@netcom.com (Mark Zenier)
wrote:

>VHDL is a variation on Ada, so if you get serious about hardware design,
>you'll learn Ada whether you want to or not.

Ain't that the truth!

I've always disliked the whole Algol/Pascal/Ada/etc family on purely
aesthetic grounds, and VHDL hasn't changed my mind.

But hey, VHDL is big, Ada isn't. I write hardware in VHDL and software
in C/C++ because that's what people pay me to do. If and when somebody
comes along and offers me vast sums of money to learn and use Ada,
then I will.

In the meantime, I accept that the C-flavoured way of doing things
allows a few bugs that'd never get past the compiler in Algol-derived
languages, but I really don't think it's that big a deal. I've written
most kinds of language over the years, and I'd be astonished if I were
to be /substantially/ more productive in Ada than C++. A few percent,
sure, I'll buy that, but probably not for what it costs.
--
Steve Rencontre, Design Consultant
http://www.rsn-tech.demon.co.uk/  --  remember to despam return address

Re: which language

[Pat Rogers]

Steve Rencontre <Steve@XXX_REMOVE_XXXrsn-tech.demon.co.uk> wrote in
message news:37185188.537482546@localhost...
<snip>
> I've always disliked the whole Algol/Pascal/Ada/etc family on purely
> aesthetic grounds, and VHDL hasn't changed my mind.
<snip>
> In the meantime, I accept that the C-flavoured way of doing things
> allows a few bugs that'd never get past the compiler in Algol-derived
> languages, but I really don't think it's that big a deal. I've written
> most kinds of language over the years, and I'd be astonished if I were
> to be /substantially/ more productive in Ada than C++. A few percent,
> sure, I'll buy that, but probably not for what it costs.

You've introduced several topics in the above, as I see it:

    1) defect rates
    2) productivity
    3) costs

Let me address each individually, if I may.

1) Defect rates

As you said, Ada and similar languages do help in finding errors that
wouldn't otherwise be found. How much?  The worst I've seen reported are
defect rates at 200 to 700 percent higher for C. Yes, factors of 2 to 7.
(That's from the Rational/Verdix evaluation of their historical data on
the development and maintenance of the VADS product line.)  C isn't C++,
sure.  On the other hand, one wonders how much C++ could improve on
those rates, since the causes usually cited are common to both.   Let's
say that it is the few percent you agree to.  In some application
domains, a few percent makes all the difference. For example, according
to my CD-ROM almanac, a 0.1% defect rate (i.e., achieving 99.9%
perfection) would result in 7,500 commercial airline carrier crashes in
one year in the US (in 1994).  That's over 20 per day.  At 99.9 percent
correct.

2) Productivity

My experience with both languages is different -- I am considerably more
productive with Ada than I am with C++ (and I consider myself a good C++
programmer).  Individual results will vary of course, but independent
studies have shown that Ada use is more productive than C++ under the
conditions of the studies.

3) Costs

What do you have in mind by "what it costs"?   Compilers are priced
competitively with C++, all the way down to free.  We've covered
productivity already, so perhaps you mean the "cost" of using a tool you
don't particularly like?  Ada isn't VHDL;  give it a try sometime --
those free compilers are available off the 'net.

Best regards,

---
Pat Rogers                            Training and Consulting in:
http://www.classwide.com      Deadline Schedulability Analysis
progers@classwide.com       Software Fault Tolerance
(281)648-3165                        Real-Time/OO Languages

Re: which language

[Emil Rojas]

"Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" wrote:

> > If you are programming in OO you should look at the other mainstream
> > OO languages.  ADA is as mainstream as Java and C++
>
> Ignoring all the other issues in this thread for a moment, I must point out
> that I am generally *not* designing object-oriented code. I don't feel that
> there is much to be gained from it in many instances.
>
> I really only use OO ideas when I am working in a big OS like Windows - and
> then, only because some OS constructs (like OLE) force it. For a project
> where the entire program can be kept in your head (something on a PIC, for
> instance), there doesn't seem to be any significant advantage in
> object-orienting anything.
>

You just convinced me that I would never hire you.

Re: which language

[bob]

In article <370ABB00.9574F43F@lapel.com>, Emil says...
 
>> For a project
>> where the entire program can be kept in your head (something on a PIC, for
>> instance), there doesn't seem to be any significant advantage in
>> object-orienting anything.


>You just convinced me that I would never hire you.
>

This is interesting. Here we have one person who claims that he does not
think OO is important or usefull for them. And then we have another person 
who will not hire the first person just becuase of that.

Ok, I think I will not hire either of you !   ;)

Bob.

Re: which language

[Phlip]

Eric Doenges wrote:

>...I doubt that english
>has absorbed anything of non-European languages...

Okay.

--
 Phlip at politizen dot com                  (address munged)
======= http://users.deltanet.com/~tegan/home.html =======

Re: which language

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

> >Also, in a goodly number of years researching ready-rolled algorithms for
> >various projects, I have NEVER ONCE come across a single line of Ada
> >sourcecode...
>
> This is very true.  But how much Smalltalk, PL/1, SNOBOL, APL, FORTH
> code do you run across?  They all have their milieus, and their uses.

EXACTLY my point. I don't see anyone around me using Ada. Ergo, it is not a
native animal of my particular branch of the embedded tree.

> say I don't know what it has been developed into since those days (early
80's?)
> But there were too many digits in the cost of the compilers at the time.

Probably there were too many digits in the cost of a computer capable of
running it, too.

> I can't see how complexity and lunacy will develop on their own where
there
> was none.

Never read the political commentary section of a newspaper, I see.

> >If there's one thing I can't stand it's language pedantry and style
> >policing. There's no place for it in embedded engineering!
>
> If you are a programming team of 1 that may be true.  But if you have
multiple
> developers or expect to support a  product down the road without the

Oh, I am not talking here about style guidelines etc. for team participants
to follow, I am talking about the horrific pedantry one finds in the
comp.lang.* NGs, where they argue syntax and holler "Compiler
non-compliance" endlessly.

> Language proponents are usually termed religious zealots or even fanatics,
> but I've never seen racist!

Due to the influence of today's media, the adjective "racist" pokes more
emotional buttons than "fanatical" etc. Slapped you in the face, got your
attention.

--
-- Lewin A.R.W. Edwards <http://www.zws.com/>
Realtime/Embedded Programmer & Embedded HW Eng
You'll catch more programmers with donuts than with bagels.

Re: which language

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

> Most people here are arguing for a broad approach. It is you who said
> that Ada is not commercially relevant. I have never used Ada but I

Check your facts before shooting off at the mouth! Go back and you will find
that I did NOT say this - someone else did in this thread:

"Mike12-" (4/5/99, 9:12 AM)
>No one is arguing that Ada is not a good languge. it is a very good
>language. The point is, it is commercially irrelevent. So for someone

*I* said that I don't think it's relevant to the sorts of work I do, that I
think it's a niche product aimed at a market I am unlikely to enter, and the
peer and more particularly semi manufacturer support is not good enough for
me to consider the massive effort of migrating anything to it. Just the
issue of porting SDK samples from various OSs alone is enough to boot weirdo
maverick languages right out the door - and AFA embedded work goes, this
includes Java.

> Your arguments clearly show you are young and know a little. Save this

Your arguments seem to show that you aren't reading the responses. Whoever
xposted this to a religious NG in the first place made a bad mistake. I
think that most of the readers of c.a.e would either not have bothered to
reply or would have agreed with the C/asm faction.

You would have no idea whatsoever of my age if I hadn't stated it
explicitly. Don't try to patronize me; you aren't arguing from a
sufficiently secure position to get away with it.

-- Lewin A.R.W. Edwards <http://www.zws.com/>
Realtime/Embedded Programmer & Embedded HW Eng
You'll catch more programmers with donuts than with bagels.

Re: which language

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

> getting the job done. As for "peer support" I don't know what to tell
> you except that I have never had any trouble at all finding someone on
> C.L.A. more than eager to help me out when I've had trouble. Most of us

Peer support is a lot more than this. Peer support is being able to dip into
a vast repository of fairly-debugged sourcecode. The available sourcecode
base for Ada is not going to match C/C++ for decades, even if everyone
starts using the language today.

> courses to vendors eager to bring their training program to your shop
> for a fee.

Ah, goody. Let's throw some more money down the tubes while we're at it. Are
you a politican, by any chance?

> your own" Ada programmers. Let's face it: New hires are going to need
> considerable training just on your own internal processes and corporate
> culture. What's a few more hours learning a new programming language? If

Oh sure - what's a few years spent porting everything to Ada? Nothing at
all. If you happen to be IBM, that is...

> You'd hope that otherwise educated people might just have enough
> rationality to try to take a look at the language without preconceived
> notions or looking for excuses to hate it. Ada is a perfectly fine

Otherwise educated people are too busy earning a living with their current
skillset and pursuing *related* learning avenues to bother with
side-tracking down a corridor that leads to an unknowable destination
through a lot of expensive tollways. (The tollways being labeled,
"Opportunity Cost" on one side and "Time Wasted" on the other).

If I was a Professor of Computer Language Pedantry somewhere (with a Masters
degree in Real-World Dissociation and Commercial Ignorance), being paid to
woffle about academic issues, then I could legitimately take time out from
woffling on C, C++, Java and asm, and research Ada so I could woffle about
that some.

If I was a student, I could probably find time out from shooting up and
participating in drunken sex parties, sober up for a while, maybe skip a
Politically Correct Neo-Marxist Non-Fascists Against Land Rights and Uranium
Mining for Disabled Gay Cuddly Native Animals meeting, and take a peek at
Ada - probably through a keyhole in the womens' showers.

As I'm neither of these things, I'll just get on with the job of coding in
the languages I know, which is what I was hired to do.

--
-- Lewin A.R.W. Edwards <http://www.zws.com/>
Realtime/Embedded Programmer & Embedded HW Eng
You'll catch more programmers with donuts than with bagels.

Re: which language

[Matthew Heaney]

samiam@cisco.com (Scott A. Moore) writes:

> C. A. Hoare did a write up on it once. Mr. Hoare is the inventor
> of "quicksort", has been in computing *forever* (perhaps he is the old
> guy you meant), and attended the early meetings held by the military
> to design Ada. According to his description, the idea started out as
> a military version of Pascal. The idea of simply using Pascal was
> discussed and dropped, then they went off on their own, designing
> an increasingly complex language until Mr. Hoare dropped out of
> the discussions in disgust.

You may be thinking of the Algol 60 revision.  Hoare, Wirth, and
Dijkstra dropped out of the design of what later became Algol 68.

Hoare made some criticisms of an early version of Ada in his Turing
Award lecture.  Although he wasn't very specific (in his speech) about
what his issues with the language were, he did mention that he thought
exceptions were dangerous, which by today's standards (Ada, C++, Java
all have them) seems a little old-fashioned.

The language that became Ada83 did incorporate many of his suggestions,
so the argument that "Hoare is disgusted with Ada" is specious.  It is
like arguing that criticisms of the first draft of a book apply to the
final draft, that incorporated the comments.

And as Robert Dewar has pointed out (because Robert has spoken with Tony
personally), Hoare was simply arguing for a subset for use in
safety-critical systems.  This has been borne out as well, for example
in the SPARK subset, and in the Ravenscar certified run-time subset.

In the end, the only way to evaluate a language is to actually write
programs in it.  GNAT, a member of the gcc family, is a free Ada95
compiler that implements all of the optional annexes.  You can download
it from the NYU ftp site.

<http://www.gnat.com/>
<ftp://ftp.cs.nyu.edu/pub/gnat>    (I think that's it)

Among other places to look for code, you can browse the ACM patterns
archive for examples of Ada95 programs.

<http://www.acm.org/archives/patterns.html>
<mailto:patterns@acm.org>

Drop me a line you need help with anything.

Matt
<mailto:matthew_heaney@acm.org>

Re: which language

[bglbv]

"Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" <sysadm@zws.com> writes:

> Peer support is a lot more than this. Peer support is being able to dip into
> a vast repository of fairly-debugged sourcecode. The available sourcecode
> base for Ada is not going to match C/C++ for decades, even if everyone
> starts using the language today.

With package Interfaces, it doesn't really need to. Just code a
wrapper around the existing library you want to reuse, and off you go.
Been there, done that (though admittedly not in an embedded context
since that isn't my line of business).

> Ah, goody. Let's throw some more money down the tubes while we're at it. Are
> you a politican, by any chance?

Whether paying to train the workforce is throwing money down the tubes depends
entirely on the returns of that investment. In some cases it may be an
extremely profitable thing to do.

> Oh sure - what's a few years spent porting everything to Ada? Nothing at
> all. If you happen to be IBM, that is...

See above. If "porting to Ada" takes more than a small fraction of
your time, you are doing something wrong (like trying to rewrite
stuff that doesn't need to be rewritten). Or else the code base
you started from was *really* bad.

> Otherwise educated people are too busy earning a living with their current
> skillset and pursuing *related* learning avenues to bother with
> side-tracking down a corridor that leads to an unknowable destination
> through a lot of expensive tollways.

Overstressed, aren't we? The Jews have this beautiful custom that one
out of every seven days is reserved for non-work-related activities.
There is a lot to be said for setting some time aside for more
speculative pursuits than one's usual business fare. Now, I'm not
saying that *you* should spend your Saturdays specifically learning
Ada; there may well be even better things for you to do in that time.
All I'm saying is that there *is* a time for side-tracking as well
as for mainline work.

[Comments about university professors and students skipped.]

> As I'm neither of these things, I'll just get on with the job of coding in
> the languages I know, which is what I was hired to do.

Good. Why don't you, instead of writing all this silly verbiage?

Re: which language

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

> If you are programming in OO you should look at the other mainstream
> OO languages.  ADA is as mainstream as Java and C++

Ignoring all the other issues in this thread for a moment, I must point out
that I am generally *not* designing object-oriented code. I don't feel that
there is much to be gained from it in many instances.

I really only use OO ideas when I am working in a big OS like Windows - and
then, only because some OS constructs (like OLE) force it. For a project
where the entire program can be kept in your head (something on a PIC, for
instance), there doesn't seem to be any significant advantage in
object-orienting anything.

--
-- Lewin A.R.W. Edwards <http://www.zws.com/>
Realtime/Embedded Programmer & Embedded HW Eng
You'll catch more programmers with donuts than with bagels.

Re: which language

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

> When I was 24 I had worked on two major projects.  One was a VHDL

My, what a fascinating life story.

Moving on to business, I am not interested in "blowing away any dinosaurs".
Dinosaurs will die of their own accord without my needing to help them at
all. Eventually I will be a dinosaur myself and will suffer a similar fate.
That's life.

My aims in participating in this thread were:

1. To point out that Ada is not as well supported as C/C++, and that it will
be at minimum a decade or two before the third-party for the language is
comparable with that for C/C++ (even if everyone starts writing Ada
tomorrow).

1a. To point out that nobody has time to learn everything and that it is
commercially silly to dive feet-first into every HLL that offers itself just
for a little technical elegance or other added wank value.

1b. To point out that the current two mainstream mom-and-pop desktop OSs
have no basis in Ada at all and both the OS vendors provide only C/C++ and
(in one case) some Pascal source in their SDKs. Developing for these OSs is
therefore best undertaken in C/C++.

1c. To point out that of the semi manufacturers I deal with, not one has any
endorsed Ada tools. Dev support from these manufacturers is available for
people using asm or C only.

1d. To state that the only real value for *ME* to learn Ada would be as an
academic exercise, which I feel is a poor investment of my time at this
moment, however interesting it might be.

2. To toss a handful of darts towards the ego-balloons of a few religious
fanatics and overinflated self-important bullfrogs such as yourself who are
trying to tell me that the reason I don't want to swim against the current
is simply because I'm too young/inexperienced/other adjective to know
better.

My aims do NOT include:

1. Trying to denigrate the language on technical merit. I don't know very
much about it, and I'm more than happy to accept the possibility that it's a
very good language indeed. OS/2 Warp is technically a much better OS than
Windows 95, but I don't know of anyone who is using OS/2 these days either.

2. Trying to say there is no place for Ada in the world, at all. I'm sure
there are niches where it is the tool of choice. I don't work in any of
them, and I don't know anybody who does.

> Oh, quite the contrary.  From that pretentious start I've had the
> opportunity to work on aeronautical analysis tools, OO design tools,

[miscellaneous trumpet-blowing deleted for brevity]. Bully for you. I
suggest you let out that croak now, otherwise you risk explosion from the
pressure in that swelling. I know what I'm doing. I don't know what you're
doing, because (a) I don't have the background learning, and (b) I'm not
paid to know about those things. Regardless of what knowledge I have or
don't have, my eyes are just as good as yours and I can see the total lack
of Ada programmers in my vicinity. Damned if I am going to go out on the end
of a limb and start sawing just because some guy who claims to have the
solution to humanity's problems tells me "it's the right thing to do", and
"the only reason you're afraid of killing yourself is because you're young
and inexperienced".

Please note also that it is quite impossible for you to annoy me seriously,
so you might save yourself a little time and effort by removing that from
your list of daily goals.

--
-- Lewin A.R.W. Edwards <http://www.zws.com/>
Realtime/Embedded Programmer & Embedded HW Eng
You'll catch more programmers with donuts than with bagels.

Re: which language

[Eric Doenges]

samiam@cisco.com (Scott A. Moore) writes:

[ ... ]

>Is C that bad ? Its a very simple language, which probally goes a long way
>towards the reason C++ has not completely taken over.

>A good parallel is the english language, which is paramount because it has
>absorbed everything interesting from other languages....

While I agree with your comments about the C language, I don't think the
english language (or any other human language for that matter) is a good
parallel.

While I could imagine that english is probably the easiest European
language to learn to a 'survival-grade' level, especially for
non-Europeans (it's certainly easier than German), I think that english is
paramount because large parts of the world were more or less dominated by
english-speaking countries the last two or three centuries (the British
Empire and the U.S. of A.). I'm no linguist, but I doubt that english
has absorbed anything of non-European languages.

To go back on topic - I suspect that most people choose C or C++ because
tools and books about these two are readily availible. I've always wanted
to take a closer look at Forth and ADA (just to name two), but have always
been held back because of the effort (yeah, I'm lazy) needed to:

a) get free tools (I'm not going to spend $$$ learning a language that I
might never use again) - they are availible, but not as easily as a free
C/C++ environment

b) get good books about the languages - they are probably out there, but
C/C++ books are a dime a dozen (and easily had in my local library).

On top of that, my current programming environment (VxWorks) does not, to
the best of my knowledge, support anything other than assembler, C and
C++. It's not that I _want_ to programm in C++, it just seems that this is
currently the lesser evil.
-- 
Eric Doenges
EMail:<Doenges@lpr.ei.tum.de>
"You don't have to swim faster than the shark, 
just faster than the guy next to you" - anonymous

Re: which language

[Steve Rencontre]

On Wed, 7 Apr 1999 09:14:03 +1000, in <7ee4j2$jo8$1@toto.tig.com.au>
"Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" <sysadm@zws.com> wrote:

>I really only use OO ideas when I am working in a big OS like Windows - and
>then, only because some OS constructs (like OLE) force it. For a project
>where the entire program can be kept in your head (something on a PIC, for
>instance), there doesn't seem to be any significant advantage in
>object-orienting anything.

This may be because in a really small design, there's only one
'object' anyway. However, I think it's initially counter-intuitive
just how useful OO is. The distinction between

	set_on (indicator);
and
	indicator.set_on();

may seem trivial or pointless, but once you start doing it, it soon
starts to feel more natural, and you realise it's actually a more
powerful technique, even for small systems.

I'm currently working on an embedded project which is really crying
out for OO, but a) one of the processors doesn't have a C++
compiler(*); and b) I've got to fit in with the rest of the client's
programming team - I think OO would blow their minds a bit :-)

(*) Yes, I know you can do OO in straight C, but it's a pain. I did a
project like that last year, and I kept wincing every time I had to
hand-code something the compiler should have done for me.


PS - totally off-topic: my news server keeps whinging because it
reckons there ain't no such ng as comp.lang.java, so I have to
manually remove it from the list. I presume clj must be aliased to
something like clj.advocacy for most folks, or is my server just being
stupid? Anyone?
--
Steve Rencontre, Design Consultant
http://www.rsn-tech.demon.co.uk/  --  remember to despam return address

Re: which language

[Emil Rojas]

bob@ wrote:

> In article <370ABB00.9574F43F@lapel.com>, Emil says...
>
> >> For a project
> >> where the entire program can be kept in your head (something on a PIC, for
> >> instance), there doesn't seem to be any significant advantage in
> >> object-orienting anything.
>
> >You just convinced me that I would never hire you.
> >
>
> This is interesting. Here we have one person who claims that he does not
> think OO is important or usefull for them. And then we have another person
> who will not hire the first person just becuase of that.
>
> Ok, I think I will not hire either of you !   ;)
>

Well, I'm sure I would never work for you!  Well .... how much?:)


Seriously, Mr. Edwards has been pretty provocative over the whole thread.
Ya know, like he thinks he knows something.  Then he  shows us here, that
he doesn't really have any idea from an object to a whole in the ground
(I'm sure other posters will make this point better than I.).  So my comment
really regarded the whole thread.  Nonetheless, in 1999 this comment alone
is sufficient to raise serious concerns about a professional programmers
understanding of his/her field.

emil

Re: which language

[Steve O'Neill]

Emil Rojas wrote:
>Seriously, Mr. Edwards has been pretty provocative over the whole 
>thread.  Ya know, like he thinks he knows something.  Then he shows us 
>here, that he doesn't really have any idea from an object to a whole in 
>the ground

Shouldn't that be a *hole* in the ground? ;)

>Nonetheless, in 1999 this comment alone is sufficient to raise serious 
>concerns about a professional programmers understanding of his/her 
>field.

Well, go check out Mr. Edwards ego page (er, resume) at zws.com
(probably the whole reason for his provocations). After realizing what
his limited domain is his comments re: OO might not seem too terribly
out of line.  It's tough to justify OOP on PICs and 8-bit controllers...

Mr. Edwards' comments are securely tucked away in my kill file.

Steve O'Neill

Re: which language

[Mike Silva]

Eric Doenges wrote in message ...
>
>To go back on topic - I suspect that most people choose C or C++ because
>tools and books about these two are readily availible. I've always wanted
>to take a closer look at Forth and ADA (just to name two), but have always
>been held back because of the effort (yeah, I'm lazy) needed to:
>
>a) get free tools (I'm not going to spend $$$ learning a language that I
>might never use again) - they are availible, but not as easily as a free
>C/C++ environment

The GNAT toolset is available in both free and supported versions (you do
pay for VxWorks, don't you?).  There are also other compilers that have
limited evaluation versions for trying out the language.
>
>b) get good books about the languages - they are probably out there, but
>C/C++ books are a dime a dozen (and easily had in my local library).

The books are out there, but admittedly not in your average local library.
>
>On top of that, my current programming environment (VxWorks) does not, to
>the best of my knowledge, support anything other than assembler, C and
>C++...

A Yahoo search on "ada vxworks" came up with four compilers that support
vxworks.  That was on the first page -- I didn't bother to look further.

Please don't construe any of this as a hostile reply, because it's not.  I
simply didn't want others reading your comments to go away with the
incorrect impression that it's particularly hard to get up and running in
Ada.

Mike

Re: which language

[fraser]

paene lacrimavi postquam Steve@XXX_REMOVE_XXXrsn-tech.demon.co.uk scribavit:

>This may be because in a really small design, there's only one
>'object' anyway. However, I think it's initially counter-intuitive
>just how useful OO is. The distinction between

>	set_on (indicator);
>and
>	indicator.set_on();

This has nothing to do with OO.  This is merely syntactic sugar;
unfortunate syntactic sugar even.  There's no fundamental reason
for either form to be dispatching (polymorphic, bound at run-time,
etc etc) or otherwise.

cheers,
Fraser.

Re: which language

[Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen]

Steve Rencontre wrote:

> In the meantime, I accept that the C-flavoured way of doing things
> allows a few bugs that'd never get past the compiler in Algol-derived
> languages, but I really don't think it's that big a deal. I've written
> most kinds of language over the years, and I'd be astonished if I were
> to be /substantially/ more productive in Ada than C++. A few percent,
> sure, I'll buy that, but probably not for what it costs.
>

Scientific method requires measurements, not beliefs. Upstream is an example
which indicate that you are wrong. There is every reason to believe that
using Ada is very cost effective. Despite the cost.
What cost? Gnat is free and Aonix has a free version of their compiler
available.

There seems to be a lot of touchie, feelie here and little hard facts.


Greetings,

Re: which language

[Emil Rojas]

Steve O'Neill wrote:

> Emil Rojas wrote:
> >Seriously, Mr. Edwards has been pretty provocative over the whole
> >thread.  Ya know, like he thinks he knows something.  Then he shows us
> >here, that he doesn't really have any idea from an object to a whole in
> >the ground
>
> Shouldn't that be a *hole* in the ground? ;)

Yes, the spelling checker is not a good proof reader, but you are.

>
>
> >Nonetheless, in 1999 this comment alone is sufficient to raise serious
> >concerns about a professional programmers understanding of his/her
> >field.
>
> Well, go check out Mr. Edwards ego page (er, resume) at zws.com
> (probably the whole reason for his provocations). After realizing what
> his limited domain is his comments re: OO might not seem too terribly
> out of line.  It's tough to justify OOP on PICs and 8-bit controllers...
>
> Mr. Edwards' comments are securely tucked away in my kill file.
>
> Steve O'Neill

Re: which language

[John Lathbury]

Oh, come on people! Surely the proper design is more important than
which language!!!!!!

Also, picking a good compiler is a BIG factor!

Small systems with seriously time critical components don't do real well
will OOD of any kind if the overhead required is too great. But that;s
design.

I have programmed embedded systems in C, C++, PASCAL, MODULA2, ADA,
BASIC and OCCAM. Oh, and beaucoup assembly languages, of course. I like
C best, especially for truly embedded apps that run with a kernel.
PASCAL and MODULA2 I found most cumbersome, but some designers may
prefer them. I think the OS, if one is needed, is the biggest problem.
Some are simply not suitable for realtime, because they are not
deterministic.

Now, can we all quit being so personal???? The embedded and realtime
world now straddles so many apps from motor cars to jet control systems
and it should come as no suprise to anyone that "one size doesn't fit
all". 

Georgi

Re: which language

[Rufus V. Smith]

I just got a free evaluation CD from Aonix for ObjectAda.   Seems to be less
crippled than much crippleware I've seen.
The only limitation is the size of the project and the fact it's an
unvalidated compiler.
Plus you should not use it for commercial development.  Only they spelled
commercial "commerical".

I hope I find time to test it.  It's hard just to find time to follow these
newsgroups.

Mike Silva wrote in message <7efuhm$8mm$1@its.hooked.net>...
>
>Eric Doenges wrote in message ...
>>
>>To go back on topic - I suspect that most people choose C or C++ because
>>tools and books about these two are readily availible. I've always wanted
>>to take a closer look at Forth and ADA (just to name two), but have always
>>been held back because of the effort (yeah, I'm lazy) needed to:
>>
>>a) get free tools (I'm not going to spend $$$ learning a language that I
>>might never use again) - they are availible, but not as easily as a free
>>C/C++ environment
>
>The GNAT toolset is available in both free and supported versions (you do
>pay for VxWorks, don't you?).  There are also other compilers that have
>limited evaluation versions for trying out the language.
>>
>>b) get good books about the languages - they are probably out there, but
>>C/C++ books are a dime a dozen (and easily had in my local library).
>
>The books are out there, but admittedly not in your average local library.
>>
>>On top of that, my current programming environment (VxWorks) does not, to
>>the best of my knowledge, support anything other than assembler, C and
>>C++...
>
>A Yahoo search on "ada vxworks" came up with four compilers that support
>vxworks.  That was on the first page -- I didn't bother to look further.
>
>Please don't construe any of this as a hostile reply, because it's not.  I
>simply didn't want others reading your comments to go away with the
>incorrect impression that it's particularly hard to get up and running in
>Ada.
>
>Mike
>
>
>
>

Re: which language

[Rufus V. Smith]

fraser@sinopsis.com wrote in message <923504200.800.42@news.remarQ.com>...
>paene lacrimavi postquam Steve@XXX_REMOVE_XXXrsn-tech.demon.co.uk
scribavit:
>
>>This may be because in a really small design, there's only one
>>'object' anyway. However, I think it's initially counter-intuitive
>>just how useful OO is. The distinction between
>
>> set_on (indicator);
>>and
>> indicator.set_on();
>
>This has nothing to do with OO.  This is merely syntactic sugar;
>unfortunate syntactic sugar even.  There's no fundamental reason
>for either form to be dispatching (polymorphic, bound at run-time,
>etc etc) or otherwise.
>
But to many it's a simple example of what OO is.


In the first form I get the "feel" I have an operator function set_on
operating on an operand (indicator).  By overloading the function, I can
deal with multiple types of "indicator".  But even overloading is to me an
object oriented capability.   If you disallow overloading, you create one
monolithic
set_on function which has to know how to deal with each type of "indicator"
it gets.

In the second form I get the "feeling" I have an operand "indicator" which
defines how the set_on function will work.  The fact that it works on the
"indicator" object itself is only obvious to those that work in C++ or Java
or anything else with a similar syntax.

Re: which language

[me]

In comp.arch.embedded Markus Kuhn <mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> a committee language! Ada also does not incoporate "everything". 

But it makes a reasonably good attempt to incorporate lots 
of "thing".

> It is
> in fact a rather nice, simple, and easy to learn language. 

Nice -- yes.  Simple?   Easy to learn?  I don't think so. 
I know that both C and Pascal are simpler and easier to learn 
(with some disclaimer with regards to C ;-)  than Ada.

I have nothing against Ada (I actually liked it) but
I believe Borland Pascal had many of the good features of 
Ada, yet it was significantly simpler and easier to learn.
(too bad Borland dropped it/replaced it with Delphi, and 
even in its heyday, it was only available for the PC, not 
counting an aborted TP for Mac)

Re: which language

[me]

In comp.arch.embedded Mark Zenier <mzenier@netcom.com> wrote:

> VHDL is a variation on Ada, so if you get serious about hardware design,
> you'll learn Ada whether you want to or not.

No.  There's also Verilog, which is not a variation of Ada.  (more 
like a mixture of C and Pascal with a little extra spice)

Re: which language

[Lathbury]

Kind of fun, isn't it???

Re: which language

[Robert Dewar]

In article <370B8DE8.E4B2898B@online.no>,
 Steve Rencontre wrote:

> In the meantime, I accept that the C-flavoured way of
> doing things> > allows a few bugs that'd never get past
> the compiler in Algol-derived
> languages, but I really don't think it's that big a
> deal. I've written most kinds of language over the years,
> and I'd be astonished if I were to be /substantially/
> more productive in Ada than C++. A few percent,
> sure, I'll buy that, but probably not for what it costs.

Generally these days, serious use of Ada 95 is in the same
ball park of cost as serious use of C++ on many systems.
For example, the SGI prices for their Ada product are
identical to the prices for their C++ product.

In any case, even a few percent productivity improvement
in a team of reasonable size pays for a *lot* of software!

Is it a few percent? Well we need to be careful here. One
of the main advantages of Ada is that most people find it
easier to write high quality high reliability software in
Ada than in C++. Now of course if your goal is

  quick-to-market
  who-cares-if-it-works
  let-the-users-be-beta-testers

type software, then this advantage is less important.

But if your goal is high reliability software, then you
must compare apples with apples. Don't just consider how
quickly you can get the first version out of the door
(though many Ada advocates would say that Ada is quite
a help even in this dimension), consider how much effort
it is to achieve software with the same level of quality.

You yourself admit that there are bugs that get past the
C compiler and do not get past the Ada compiler.

Now of bugs that get past the compiler, some fraction are
found during QA testing, some are found during beta
testing, and some go on to be a menace in the deployed
software.

In practice, some fraction of those bugs that sneak past
the C compiler but which would have been caught by the
Ada compiler will be in the third category, and cause
real trouble. To completely eliminate all bugs by testing
is, as we know, either impossible or at the very least
extremely expensive.

A few percent? Well most people experienced in the use of
both languages estimate the improvement to be more
significant than this, but even a few percent combined
with quality improvements would be important.

How much would it help you?

Who knows, certainly you don't if you have never used
Ada. You might find it much more helpful than you expect,
I have seen plenty of cases of C and C++ programmers
thinking as you do learn Ada, and find that their
expectations where quite wrong.

But your milage may vary, after all not all programmers
have the same productivity, and productivity differences
between programmers are certainly greater than those
between languages .... who knows how productive you are
in C++ ? :-)

-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/       Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own    

Re: which language

[Kelsey Bjarnason]

[snips]

Dave Hansen <dhansen@btree.com> wrote in message
news:370932d7.20928994@192.168.2.34...
> On 3 Apr 1999 09:40:30 GMT, mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk (Markus Kuhn) wrote:

> Not that I dislike Ada (I even bought the Meridian compiler back
about
> 10 years ago).  But I think it's a fallacy to consider it a simpler
> language than C, or even C9X.  And it's easier to find C compilers
for
> the 8051.  Or even Modula-2!

Really?  How many C compilers have you found for Modula-2?  :)

Re: which language

[Everett M. Greene]

In article <doenges.923465833@lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de>
	Eric Doenges <doenges@lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de> writes:
> samiam@cisco.com (Scott A. Moore) writes:
> 
> [ ... ]
> 
> >Is C that bad ? Its a very simple language, which probally goes a long way
> >towards the reason C++ has not completely taken over.
> 
> >A good parallel is the english language, which is paramount because it has
> >absorbed everything interesting from other languages....
> 
> While I agree with your comments about the C language, I don't think the
> english language (or any other human language for that matter) is a good
> parallel.
> 
> While I could imagine that english is probably the easiest European
> language to learn to a 'survival-grade' level, especially for
> non-Europeans (it's certainly easier than German), I think that english is
> paramount because large parts of the world were more or less dominated by
> english-speaking countries the last two or three centuries (the British
> Empire and the U.S. of A.). I'm no linguist, but I doubt that english
> has absorbed anything of non-European languages.
[snip]

Don't let this idea run amok.  Sayonara (sp?), Sahib.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Everett M. Greene   (The Mojave Greene, crotalus scutulatus scutulatus)
Ridgecrest, Ca. 93555           Path: mojaveg@ridgecrest.ca.us

Re: which language

[mich]

In article <7ego2a$v1q$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Robert says...
 

>Is it a few percent? Well we need to be careful here. One
>of the main advantages of Ada is that most people find it
>easier to write high quality high reliability software in
>Ada than in C++. Now of course if your goal is
>
>  quick-to-market
>  who-cares-if-it-works
>  let-the-users-be-beta-testers
>
>type software, then this advantage is less important.
>

But the above covers 90% of how the software is being build
nowadays.

The first main priority any manager in a commerical software
shop asks for : How soon can you start coding and how soon 
are you done coding so the thing can be shipped out of the door.

Given that 90% of software companies operate this way, Ada 
advantage will never be looked at seriuosly by any manager.

I sometimes think that Ada programmers must live in a 
different world than the world the rest of the programmers live in. 
  
Mich.
 

Re: which language

[Dave Hansen]

On Thu, 08 Apr 1999 12:41:12 -0400, "Howard W. LUDWIG"
<howard.w.ludwig@lmco.com> wrote:

[...]
>
>Hmm!  Well, yes, perhaps we do live in a different world.  The question
>is which world has the brightest prospects for survival.  There are many
>parallels in the world of higher-technology industry.  Let me pick
>one--televisions.
[...No more TVs made in America...]

Yes.  Well.  I was trying to stay out of this, because I really don't
take either side.  But since you mention "survival" and TVs, let me
provide another example.  Beta vs. VHS.  

Of course, I'll let you decide which one's Ada, and which one's not.
Regards,

                          -=Dave
Just my (10-010) cents
I can barely speak for myself, so I certainly can't speak for B-Tree.
Change is inevitable.  Progress is not.

Re: which language

[Lathbury]

Oh Gee, in Medical Devices you don't ship and let the customer find the
Bugs!!!

But I haven't in many years seen ADA used for medical devices. That
doesn't mean it isn't, but C, C++ (sigh) are much more common "in my
experience" and medical is pretty serious stuff.....

Re: which language

[Steve]

In article <370CDC27.6DE9E233@lmco.com>, "Howard says...
 
>As the poster pointed out above, nearly every (90 % claimed by the
>poster) software company in the USA just wants to get the software
>product out the door quickly.  "Who cares if it has lots of errors?  Our
>customers will let us know what is wrong and we'll fix it.  We won't
>have to spend lots of money and time (which equals money) testing and
>debugging."  Customers are used to the errors.  But what will happen
>when one company puts out a useful product that works correctly? ...

This does not happen and has not happend. I do not see a commerical software
shop adopting Ada as a secrete weapon to produce higher quality software that
will compete with the masses of code out there (aka windows-like 
software) being pupmed out by the millions of lines of code each day 
all the over the world and being written by C/C++/Java/Perl/VB type
languages.

As a matter of fact, in not a single interview I ever had, did any one ever
ask me a question related to software quality. Every one was interested 
in how fast I can code and how many bugs I can find per hour. quality is not
that important in real world commerical type software. People want software
that works to some extent, and crashes no more than 5-10 times per day, and
they will accept that. (after all, how hard is it to hit CTRL-ALT-DEL?) 


(btw, the normal numbers I use in an interview are 5 functions per hour, 
and finding 5 bugs per hour, this almost always gets me a job offer on 
the spot).

So your analysis of some company comming tommorrow and starting to use Ada to
produce such a high quality and well engineered and developed commerical
software that it will force all other software shops to move to Ada to be able
to compete is nothing but a day dream of yours and a pure fantasy.

The most frequented food outlets by the masses and where 90% of people go
to eat are Macdonnalds and Jack-in-the box and Burger king. It is not 
your fancy 5 stars resturant.

This is another proof as somwone else said that Ada programmers do not
live in the real world and do not know how practical commerical shops
make code. I suggest that Ada programmers leave this fanatsy world they live in
and get coding jobs in a real life commerical software shops to see 
how code is actually written. 

Steve

Re: which language

[P.S. Norby]

Lathbury wrote:
> 
> Oh Gee, in Medical Devices you don't ship and let the customer find the
> Bugs!!!
> 
> But I haven't in many years seen ADA used for medical devices. That
> doesn't mean it isn't, but C, C++ (sigh) are much more common "in my
> experience" and medical is pretty serious stuff.....

I take it you haven't met Bob Lief!

-- 
P.S. Norby

 "Software engineers are, in many ways, similar to normal people"

        --  Scott Adams

"No excuses.  No embarrassment.  No apologies...
 Ada -- the most trusted and powerful programming language
 on earth, or in space." -- S. Tucker Taft
 
\\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\ 
( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)
///    ///    ///    ///    ///    ///    ///    ///    /// 
(Speaking only for myself)

Re: which language

[Ed Falis]

On 8 Apr 1999 10:45:23 -0700, Steve@nospam wrote:
> This is another proof as somwone else said that Ada programmers do not
> live in the real world and do not know how practical commerical shops
> make code. I suggest that Ada programmers leave this fanatsy world they live in
> and get coding jobs in a real life commerical software shops to see 
> how code is actually written. 
> 
> Steve
> 

Why get that kind of "real life" when MY real life allows me to write good, solid code in an enjoyable language, address challenging problems, make as much or more 
money, and have some pride in trying to do the right things - instead of caving in to a least common denominator approach to my profession?  Question reality, Bub.

- Ed Falis

Re: which language

[Simon Wright]

mich@nospam writes:

> The first main priority any manager in a commerical software
> shop asks for : How soon can you start coding and how soon 
> are you done coding so the thing can be shipped out of the door.
> 
> Given that 90% of software companies operate this way, Ada 
> advantage will never be looked at seriuosly by any manager.
> 
> I sometimes think that Ada programmers must live in a 
> different world than the world the rest of the programmers live in. 

Clearly this is true. We tend to live in a world where phrases like
Product Liability and Safety are important.

There is bound to come a time when your manager above will find
himself being sued for bad software in that pacemaker. (I was going to
write 'herself', but then I wondered whether there might be a gender
difference here?)

Note, that's *not* to say you need to use Ada! the language is
unlikely to be a major up-front cost determinant, at least not
compared to the elimination of the -- errm, unprofessional? --
practices you're describing.

[Now I've written that, I realise that it is of course the
responsibility of *any* manager to get the job completed as quickly
and effectively as possible, no one could quarrel with that! it's just
that that aim's unlikely to be met by the "you start coding, I'll find
out what the punter wants" approach which you seemed to be hinting
at. If you weren't, apologies.]

Re: which language

[Scott A. Moore]

In article <370CDC27.6DE9E233@lmco.com>
"Howard W. LUDWIG" <howard.w.ludwig@lmco.com> wrote:


> The USA used to be the leading producer of televisions.  After all, "Buy
> American!  American products are the best!"  In the 1960s, Japan, for
> example, couldn't compete with the USA on price, innovation, time to
> market, etc.  But the Americans had one weak point, in spite of all the
> marketing hype:  quality.  The Japanese jumped on that opportunity.  Now
> how many televisions are produced in the USA each year?  (Hint: the
> number has one digit and it is round.)
> 

I started out in a TV training course. My teach told me that TV
engineering was the most boring job in the world. You were assigned
one circuit in the damm thing, the oscillator (say), and you worked
on that crap for life, trying to get a few pennies out of the cost.
We lost ground there because the profit margins sucked and no one
here wanted to do design or make the damm things.

> As the poster pointed out above, nearly every (90 % claimed by the
> poster) software company in the USA just wants to get the software
> product out the door quickly.  "Who cares if it has lots of errors?  Our
> customers will let us know what is wrong and we'll fix it.  We won't
> have to spend lots of money and time (which equals money) testing and
> debugging."  Customers are used to the errors.  But what will happen
> when one company puts out a useful product that works correctly? ...
> Here is the discriminating characteristic that will allow you to stand
> out above the crowd.
> 

I doubt it works that way in real life (certainly not here, and I would
not hold us up as the capitol of quality). More like reality is that
we all believe way to much time is spent debugging the code instead
of designing it right to begin with. Customers are an unforgiving lot.

> Howard W. LUDWIG
> 



The year 2000. The stock market hitting 10,000.
These events prove once and for all that we
have ten fingers......

Re: which language

[Scott A. Moore]

In article <7eipvj$n0a@drn.newsguy.com>
Steve@nospam wrote:


> This does not happen and has not happend. I do not see a commerical software
> shop adopting Ada as a secrete weapon to produce higher quality software that
> will compete with the masses of code out there (aka windows-like 
> software) being pupmed out by the millions of lines of code each day 
> all the over the world and being written by C/C++/Java/Perl/VB type
> languages.
> 

We'ed get 90% better use of any language, C included, if programmers would
write decent reusable functions instead of arbitrary crap.

API does not mean Arbitrary Programming by Idiots. Write a descent API
for each detail of your hardware, and the fact that you don't have to
rewrite the code for each new product will pay for itself. The language
is not the problem. The nut that holds the keyboard is.

My common comback to the question "why don't we use C++" ? Answer,
"before you make code reusable, make code that is worth reusing".

New languages don't solve the problem. They may even increase it. The
programmers go off on a lark rewriting everything in sight for the great
new wonder language, real work stops, then everyone wakes up with a hangover
when they find out they can create real bugs just as well with the new
language. Then the resumes go out......


> This is another proof as somwone else said that Ada programmers do not
> live in the real world and do not know how practical commerical shops
> make code. I suggest that Ada programmers leave this fanatsy world they live in
> and get coding jobs in a real life commerical software shops to see 
> how code is actually written. 
> 
> Steve

Most ADA programmers work for the military, which bears little resemblance
to the real world......

                           [sam]

The year 2000. The stock market hitting 10,000.
These events prove once and for all that we
have ten fingers......

Re: which language

[Kevin Miller]

Does anyone know of a good book that will teach me how to pick the best classes for
a particular program, when to used derived classes, and important styles (if there
are any) of classes that I need to know?

This thread exemplifies my biggest problem as a newbie object oriented coder.  I'm
sure it is only BECAUSE I'm new, but my c programs are always smaller, quicker, and
(for me) easier to read than my c++ ones.  I do believe that working with objects
is better, (since everyone says so :) but at this point, I rarely see the benefit
I also don't see too much difference in deriving a class from a base, and putting a
base class variable in the derived class, except for the cool pointer thing.  I'm
self taught, so I'm well aware that I'm missing some important pieces of
information, but I'm just not sure where to find them

Also, are there any good websites for people learning c++/object oriented stuff?

Thanks for your help.  Maybe someday I can answer a post instead of always asking
:)

kevin


Emil Rojas wrote:

> bob@ wrote:
>
> > In article <370ABB00.9574F43F@lapel.com>, Emil says...
> >
> > >> For a project
> > >> where the entire program can be kept in your head (something on a PIC, for
> > >> instance), there doesn't seem to be any significant advantage in
> > >> object-orienting anything.
> >
> > >You just convinced me that I would never hire you.
> > >
> >
> > This is interesting. Here we have one person who claims that he does not
> > think OO is important or usefull for them. And then we have another person
> > who will not hire the first person just becuase of that.
> >
> > Ok, I think I will not hire either of you !   ;)
> >
>
> Well, I'm sure I would never work for you!  Well .... how much?:)
>
> Seriously, Mr. Edwards has been pretty provocative over the whole thread.
> Ya know, like he thinks he knows something.  Then he  shows us here, that
> he doesn't really have any idea from an object to a whole in the ground
> (I'm sure other posters will make this point better than I.).  So my comment
> really regarded the whole thread.  Nonetheless, in 1999 this comment alone
> is sufficient to raise serious concerns about a professional programmers
> understanding of his/her field.
>
> emil

I give up (was Re: which language)

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

> Seriously, Mr. Edwards has been pretty provocative over the whole thread.

Mainly because as soon as I said anything I instantly had religious maniacs
getting on my goat. Tit for tat!

> he doesn't really have any idea from an object to a whole in the ground

I know how to design and write object-based code, I just don't often see
where it would add anything to code I've written, particularly when we're
talking about very small projects - and there is an overhead. Most of the
personal projects I've done were written in procedural C, with a couple of
exceptions - for example, I ported about 70% of the System 16 emulator to
MacOS, and in the process I converted the procedural C and asm mix to C++
and encapsulated several of the conceptual modules in that program within
objects. I did this because, for instance, some Sega games run on a 68000
with a Z-80 for the audio control, whereas others have two 68000s and a
Z-80, and others still have three Z-80s. I wanted to be able to create
further CPU instances for those latter games without having to cut and paste
about 200 global variables and rename them!

But I know when I'm licked. I'll butt out of this thread and return to topic
in this NG. I'm sure there will be a war for me to join in aus.comms.mobile
if I really want one to practise my haranguing.

PS: A resume is an advertisement. Who ever saw a self-effacing
advertisement, hmm?

--
-- Lewin A.R.W. Edwards <http://www.zws.com/>
Realtime/Embedded Programmer & Embedded HW Eng
You'll catch more programmers with donuts than with bagels.

Re: which language

[Eric Doenges]

"Mike Silva" <mjsilva@jps.net> writes:

>The GNAT toolset is available in both free and supported versions (you do
>pay for VxWorks, don't you?). 

Yeah, and VxWorks ate the rest of our ridiculously low budget (our
Professor believes in honesty when applying for research grants - never
mind that everyone else seems to pad their cost projections so that half
of what you apply for is automatically cut.), so I'm looking for a free
lunch.

>Please don't construe any of this as a hostile reply, because it's not. I
>simply didn't want others reading your comments to go away with the
>incorrect impression that it's particularly hard to get up and running in
>Ada.

I'm not saying it's particulary hard, I'm just saying it's harder than
going with C/C++. For me, the problem is justifying the extra effort
(getting the tools, getting it to work in our environment, learning a new
language) without clear visible benefits -- i.e. if I could count on
saving substantial coding/testing/debugging time by using ADA over C++, it
would make sense. It's a vicious circle I supsect a lot of people are
facing - you don't know if it's worth the effort to check out until you
have checked it out.




-- 
Eric Doenges
EMail:<Doenges@lpr.ei.tum.de>
"You don't have to swim faster than the shark, 
just faster than the guy next to you" - anonymous

Re: which language

[Tap]

On 7 Apr 1999 21:33:14 -0700, mich@nospam wrote:

>In article <7ego2a$v1q$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Robert says...
> 
>
>>Is it a few percent? Well we need to be careful here. One
>>of the main advantages of Ada is that most people find it
>>easier to write high quality high reliability software in
>>Ada than in C++. Now of course if your goal is
>>
>>  quick-to-market
>>  who-cares-if-it-works
>>  let-the-users-be-beta-testers
>>
>>type software, then this advantage is less important.
>>
>
>But the above covers 90% of how the software is being build
>nowadays.
>
>The first main priority any manager in a commerical software
>shop asks for : How soon can you start coding and how soon 
>are you done coding so the thing can be shipped out of the door.
>
>Given that 90% of software companies operate this way, Ada 
>advantage will never be looked at seriuosly by any manager.
>
>I sometimes think that Ada programmers must live in a 
>different world than the world the rest of the programmers live in. 
>  
>Mich.
> 
>
Now that's the best endorsement for ADA I've heard yet.

Re: which language

[Chris Hills]

In article <477cf$f264.177@news.kea.bc.ca>, Kelsey Bjarnason
<meandom@earthling.net> writes
>[snips]
>
>Dave Hansen <dhansen@btree.com> wrote in message
>news:370932d7.20928994@192.168.2.34...
>> Not that I dislike Ada (I even bought the Meridian compiler back
> about
>> 10 years ago).  But I think it's a fallacy to consider it a simpler
>> language than C, or even C9X.  And it's easier to find C compilers
>for
>> the 8051.  Or even Modula-2!
>
>Really?  How many C compilers have you found for Modula-2?  :)

Mod2 to C (and vice versa ) translators?  There are/were several but
God only knows why!

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\  Chris Hills          Staffs /\/\/\/\/\/
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\     England      /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Re: which language

[Chris Hills]

>> Empire and the U.S. of A.). I'm no linguist, but I doubt that english
>> has absorbed anything of non-European languages.

Sorry lost the attribution as this is a quote in a quote!

British English is full of words from most parts of the world we .... er....
well... civilised ? (ducks and dons asbestos suit :-)

British English has many French colonial , Latin, Arab, African words in
it. Azimuth is Arabic for example. Many slang words in common usage
come from across the globe. Char for tea. Bint for Girl

I suspect that  US English with its high  number of foreign nationals has
more non European words in it in common use than British English.
Though we  have Ada which does not appear to be used in some parts
of the USA :-)

regards
        Chris
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\  Chris Hills          Staffs /\/\/\/\/\/
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\     England      /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Re: I give up (was Re: which language)

[Chris Hills]

In article <7egrhr$772$1@toto.tig.com.au>, Lewin A.R.W. Edwards
<sysadm@zws.com> writes
>> Seriously, Mr. Edwards has been pretty provocative over the whole thread.
>
>Mainly because as soon as I said anything I instantly had religious maniacs
>getting on my goat. Tit for tat!

From what I have seen the only "religious maniac" in here is you. Closed
mind and thinks he knows it all at 24. At 24 you can only have gained
your degree a year or two ago so you have no real experience.

You have been given a lot of sound advice from those who have been
around a while and know what they are on about.  You should look at
the number of people who have said that, from your remarks, they
would not employ you.  They might have annoyed you but you seem to
have annoyed everyone who would be in a position to employ you. Not
smart.

Save this thread and re-read it in 5 years time. You will die of
embarrassment at your comments. If not you have learned nothing and
will be of no use to anyone except possibly your current employer as
you will know his systems. But please stay out of embedded work until
you become a little more mature.

BTW I had a look at a recent survey of around 100 ICE currently
available. 99.9% supported C and strangely 90% supported that little
used language ADA. Now why, if ADA is so little used in embedded
work, would virtually every ICE manufacturer support the language for
most platforms. I guess they don't have any 24 year olds who know it
all making the decisions.

Regards

        Chris

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\/\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills, BSc, C Eng, MIEE, FRGS   \/\/\/\/\/\
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Tamworth Staffs B77 5PG England  /\/\/\/\/\/\/
\/\/ for info on Assn. of C & C++ Users see www.accu.org /\/\

Re: Age, who gives a damn (was I give up (was Re: which language]

[Emil Rojas]

Chris Hills wrote:

> In article <7egrhr$772$1@toto.tig.com.au>, Lewin A.R.W. Edwards
> <sysadm@zws.com> writes
> >> Seriously, Mr. Edwards has been pretty provocative over the whole thread.
> >
> >Mainly because as soon as I said anything I instantly had religious maniacs
> >getting on my goat. Tit for tat!
>
> From what I have seen the only "religious maniac" in here is you. Closed
> mind and thinks he knows it all at 24. At 24 you can only have gained
> your degree a year or two ago so you have no real experience.
>

I want jump in on this age thing.  First, I find it unfortunate that age was
mentioned at all.  To me on a technical forum such as these groups should be
a place where we care more about what you know than how you got here.
I also find it unfortunate, that anyone felt in necessary to follow up on this
issue.

I have about 20 years now in this industry, I would not be surprised to met
a 24 year old today that could teach me a thing or two about programming.
In fact I have met 24 year olds whose programming experience rivals mine!

I live and work in Silicon Valley and I wonder if this is a Valley perspective.
It
is literally a daily experience to work with people with 20 years difference
in age working as peers and no one caring a bit, except by what you know.

So the fact that someone is 24 matters very little to me when it comes to
software.
In fact I would go further, it doesn't matter at all in any professional domain.

OTH, I would be last to argue that experience doesn't count.  Unfortunately,
we don't all get the same learning out of similar experiences.

emil

Re: which language

[Steve Rencontre]

On Wed, 07 Apr 1999 17:55:05 +0100, in <370B8DE8.E4B2898B@online.no>
"Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen" <tarjei@online.no> wrote:

>
>
>Steve Rencontre wrote:
>
>> In the meantime, I accept that the C-flavoured way of doing things
>> allows a few bugs that'd never get past the compiler in Algol-derived
>> languages, but I really don't think it's that big a deal. I've written
>> most kinds of language over the years, and I'd be astonished if I were
>> to be /substantially/ more productive in Ada than C++. A few percent,
>> sure, I'll buy that, but probably not for what it costs.
>>
>
>Scientific method requires measurements, not beliefs.

Based on /past/ measurements, my /belief/ is that this new measurement
will not be very different. I may be wrong, but it's not trivial to
simply do the measurement and find out.

> Upstream is an example
>which indicate that you are wrong.

No. Upstream is an example that says something done in one place by
one bunch of guys cost three times as much as another thing done in
another place by another bunch of guys, that - by /one/ measure - it
was equivalent to. That's not what I call the full application of the
scientific method.

>What cost? Gnat is free and Aonix has a free version of their compiler
>available.

Bollocks!

You know as well as I do that /properly/ learning a language takes
more than a couple of afternoons with a book to learn the syntax. More
than a three-day intensive course, even! If there's anything
substantial in Ada beyond better detection of misplaced semicolons,
it's going to require a change in mindset that takes time and effort
to learn.

It /may/ be worth it, I don't dispute that, but it's not a simple
question of "Look and you will see".


--
Steve Rencontre, Design Consultant
http://www.rsn-tech.demon.co.uk/  --  remember to despam return address

Re: which language

[Steve Rencontre]

On Wed, 07 Apr 1999 23:00:31 GMT, in <7ego2a$v1q$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com> wrote:

>Generally these days, serious use of Ada 95 is in the same
>ball park of cost as serious use of C++ on many systems.

Sorry, I didn't simply mean purchase price of compiler, etc. 'Cost'
includes the time and effort required to learn the language
/properly/. It includes the extra effort to keep current in multiple
fields if I don't want to commit fully to the Ada camp.

>Is it a few percent? Well we need to be careful here. One
>of the main advantages of Ada is that most people find it
>easier to write high quality high reliability software in
>Ada than in C++. Now of course if your goal is
>
>  quick-to-market
>  who-cares-if-it-works
>  let-the-users-be-beta-testers
>
>type software, then this advantage is less important.

No. My goal is to satisfy the people who pay me, so they'll want to
come back and pay me again. Insofar as it's possible, I like to design
good products and write clean elegant code that doesn't fall over, but
that's not an end in itself.

Sometimes a quick hack job /is/ good enough, and paying extra for
ultimate quality is not cost-effective. Perhaps you might have a
problem with that, but I don't.

>But if your goal is high reliability software, then you
>must compare apples with apples. Don't just consider how
>quickly you can get the first version out of the door
>(though many Ada advocates would say that Ada is quite
>a help even in this dimension), consider how much effort
>it is to achieve software with the same level of quality.
>
>You yourself admit that there are bugs that get past the
>C compiler and do not get past the Ada compiler.
>
>Now of bugs that get past the compiler, some fraction are
>found during QA testing, some are found during beta
>testing, and some go on to be a menace in the deployed
>software.
>
>In practice, some fraction of those bugs that sneak past
>the C compiler but which would have been caught by the
>Ada compiler will be in the third category, and cause
>real trouble. To completely eliminate all bugs by testing
>is, as we know, either impossible or at the very least
>extremely expensive.

Most projects these days accept that bugs will be present in the
deliverable. Now, you may decry that as scandalous, and it may indeed
be true that Ada is a big help in those projects that demand 100%
perfection, but it takes a /lot/ more than just a programming language
to make that goal realistic.

>I have seen plenty of cases of C and C++ programmers
>thinking as you do learn Ada, and find that their
>expectations where quite wrong.

Maybe if I wasn't contributing to pointless language wars on Usenet
I'd have more time to learn :-)
--
Steve Rencontre, Design Consultant
http://www.rsn-tech.demon.co.uk/  --  remember to despam return address

Re: which language

[Steve Rencontre]

On Wed, 07 Apr 1999 16:56:40 GMT, in
<923504200.800.42@news.remarQ.com> fraser@sinopsis.com wrote:

>paene lacrimavi postquam Steve@XXX_REMOVE_XXXrsn-tech.demon.co.uk scribavit:
>
>>This may be because in a really small design, there's only one
>>'object' anyway. However, I think it's initially counter-intuitive
>>just how useful OO is. The distinction between
>
>>	set_on (indicator);
>>and
>>	indicator.set_on();
>
>This has nothing to do with OO.  This is merely syntactic sugar;
>unfortunate syntactic sugar even.  There's no fundamental reason
>for either form to be dispatching (polymorphic, bound at run-time,
>etc etc) or otherwise.
>
>cheers,
>Fraser.

I think in a roundabout way, you're making my point for me. Yes, it's
syntactic sugar, which is one reason why non-OO types think OO is no
big deal.

However, it does sum up in a very simple way what the OO mindset is
all about: the primacy of objects as against the primacy of functions.
--
Steve Rencontre, Design Consultant
http://www.rsn-tech.demon.co.uk/  --  remember to despam return address

Re: Age, who gives a damn (was I give up (was Re: which language]

[Lathbury]

I agree. 25 years for me (but only 10 in embedded) and no way can you
know everything. And wouldn't it be boring if you did!

Just because I can debug without any tools doesn't mean that's best!
I'll use what is appropriate and that goes for language, compiler, OS,
processor and debug tools!

The big thing is that we can all learn from each other no matter what
your experience level or AGE! (I agree, what does age have to do with
anything!). Newbies teach me new tricks all the time. I can't spend as
much time learning as I want so I siphon as much as possible from the
great ideas of my colleagues.

Well said, Emil! But I work in the Valley, too, so maybe my two cents
worth isn't ;^)

Re: which language

[Howard W. LUDWIG]

mich@nospam wrote:

> In article <7ego2a$v1q$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Robert says...
>
> >Is it a few percent? Well we need to be careful here. One
> >of the main advantages of Ada is that most people find it
> >easier to write high quality high reliability software in
> >Ada than in C++. Now of course if your goal is
> >
> >  quick-to-market
> >  who-cares-if-it-works
> >  let-the-users-be-beta-testers
> >
> >type software, then this advantage is less important.
>
> But the above covers 90% of how the software is being build
> nowadays.
>
> The first main priority any manager in a commerical software
> shop asks for : How soon can you start coding and how soon
> are you done coding so the thing can be shipped out of the door.
>
> Given that 90% of software companies operate this way, Ada
> advantage will never be looked at seriuosly by any manager.
>
> I sometimes think that Ada programmers must live in a
> different world than the world the rest of the programmers live in.
>
> Mich.

Hmm!  Well, yes, perhaps we do live in a different world.  The question
is which world has the brightest prospects for survival.  There are many
parallels in the world of higher-technology industry.  Let me pick
one--televisions.

The USA used to be the leading producer of televisions.  After all, "Buy
American!  American products are the best!"  In the 1960s, Japan, for
example, couldn't compete with the USA on price, innovation, time to
market, etc.  But the Americans had one weak point, in spite of all the
marketing hype:  quality.  The Japanese jumped on that opportunity.  Now
how many televisions are produced in the USA each year?  (Hint: the
number has one digit and it is round.)

As the poster pointed out above, nearly every (90 % claimed by the
poster) software company in the USA just wants to get the software
product out the door quickly.  "Who cares if it has lots of errors?  Our
customers will let us know what is wrong and we'll fix it.  We won't
have to spend lots of money and time (which equals money) testing and
debugging."  Customers are used to the errors.  But what will happen
when one company puts out a useful product that works correctly? ...
Here is the discriminating characteristic that will allow you to stand
out above the crowd.

Howard W. LUDWIG

Re: which language

[Elizabeth D Rather]

Eric Doenges wrote in message ...
>To go back on topic - I suspect that most people choose C or C++ because
>tools and books about these two are readily availible. I've always wanted
>to take a closer look at Forth and ADA (just to name two), but have always
>been held back because of the effort (yeah, I'm lazy) needed to:
>
>a) get free tools (I'm not going to spend $$$ learning a language that I
>might never use again) - they are availible, but not as easily as a free
>C/C++ environment
>
>b) get good books about the languages - they are probably out there, but
>C/C++ books are a dime a dozen (and easily had in my local library).


There are free Forths available for a number of platforms (DOS, Win, Unix)
at www.forth.org.  A free evaluation version of SwiftForth (Win platforms)
is available at www.forth.com.  The Forth Programmer's Handbook is
available from either of the above sites or Amazon.

Cheers,
Elizabeth

Re: which language

[Scott A. Moore]

In article <3joP7IAvOGD3EApi@phaedsys.demon.co.uk>
Chris Hills <chris@phaedsys.demon.co.uk> wrote:


>>Really?  How many C compilers have you found for Modula-2?  :)
> 
> Mod2 to C (and vice versa ) translators?  There are/were several but
> God only knows why!
> 

Because modula is like Niagra Falls. You heard it was beautiful,
and it was, but now you are cold, wet, and want to go home.

                            [sam]

The year 2000. The stock market hitting 10,000.
These events prove once and for all that we
have ten fingers......

Re: which language

[Scott A. Moore]

In article <7ego2a$v1q$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com> wrote:

> Generally these days, serious use of Ada 95 is in the same
> ball park of cost as serious use of C++ on many systems.
> For example, the SGI prices for their Ada product are
> identical to the prices for their C++ product.
>

Not to rain on your parade, but coming to an imbedded group to
preach against the use of C is like holding a racial sensitivity
session at a KKK rally.....

                                     [sam] 

The year 2000. The stock market hitting 10,000.
These events prove once and for all that we
have ten fingers......

Re: Age, who gives a damn (was I give up (was Re: which language]

[Scott A. Moore]

In article <370CB21E.DAD6A6D8@lapel.com>
Emil Rojas <emil@lapel.com> wrote:


> I want jump in on this age thing.  First, I find it unfortunate that age was
> mentioned at all.  To me on a technical forum such as these groups should be
> a place where we care more about what you know than how you got here.
> I also find it unfortunate, that anyone felt in necessary to follow up on this
> issue.
> 
> I have about 20 years now in this industry, I would not be surprised to met
> a 24 year old today that could teach me a thing or two about programming.
> In fact I have met 24 year olds whose programming experience rivals mine!
> 

I had one of the older engineers (about 50) end a technical argument by annoucing
"I have 15 years in this industry, and I know", then stomp out.
Later in the day, it suddenly occurred to me: So did I, at 35 (yep, engineer by
20).

I know guys who could say the same at age 25. My old boss's place actually
got busted for illegal employment of minors. He was (needless to say) about
10 years yonger than I.

We have a saying about guys who go around quoting their industry time.

"I have 20 years !"

"yep, same year, over and over....."

                                        [sam]


The year 2000. The stock market hitting 10,000.
These events prove once and for all that we
have ten fingers......

Re: which language

[Richard D Riehle]

>Dave Hansen <dhansen@btree.com> wrote in message
>news:370932d7.20928994@192.168.2.34...

> And it's easier to find C compilers for the 8051.  

  Several contributors to this discussion, including Mr. Lewin,
  have referred to eight-bit microcomputers. For many developers,
  embedded systems programming is about this kind of platform. Most
  80501/Z80/etc programmers I know here in Silicon Valley would rather
  program these little computers in Assembler.  An increasing number
  are accepting C as sometimes OK.  A few have discovered the virtues of
  Forth.  Almost none use C++.  None use Ada. A tiny few use Modula.  

  When discussing micocontroller platforms, arguments about Ada and
  C++ versus C and Assembler, arguments about object technology versus
  old-fashioned flow-of-control, are pretty useless.  There are no Ada
  compilers for the eight-bitters -- probably never will be, because
  1) the market does not demand Ada, and 2) I cannot imagine a complete
  implementation of Ada for an 8051, 3) Ada and C++ offer more than most
  8051 projects demand.

  It should be noted, too, that these little eight-bitters are not at
  all obsolete.  They are chosen for products that require a minimum
  of software control such as microwaves, stepper motors, and fuel
  injection units.  Also, because they are of such a low price per unit,
  a product that sells in the millions will realize a corresponding saving
  in the millions. That is, the economics of the eight-bitter is sound 
  justification for using it in consumer products. 

  One of my friends here in Silicon Valley is doing medical device 
  software using 8051's.  He and I have discussed Ada from time to 
  time.  The theme of our discussion is whether using Assembler for
  an 8051, and the potential for deployed defects is outweighed by 
  the improved error-checking one would see from an Ada compiler on
  a larger processor.  It is an argument that cannot be won.

  Mr. Lewin is probably correct when he refers to the virtue of C over
  Ada for these itty-bitty embedded systems.  If his requirements were
  to scale-up to larger software requirements such as those required for
  embedded avionics, communication satellites, or nuclear power plants,
  he would quickly discover that learning a new programming language for
  software development in these environments would be the least of his
  worries.  Ada could certainly be of interest to him in that scenario.

  I realize that some in the Ada community have insisted that Ada would
  be just as viable on an eight-bit microcontroller as Assembler or C. 
  It seems to me that this view is too optimistic.  Since no one has
  tried to port Ada to the 8051, and no one is asking for it, the 
  debate is purely academic anyway.  

  Ada has its role in high-quality, safety-critical embedded software
  in large-scale environments such as radars, missiles, command and
  control systems, avionics, and medical equipment. It does not seem 
  to have a role in the development of software in eight-bit 
  controllers for stepper motors on rear-view mirrors.

  Richard Riehle
  richard@adaworks.com
  http://www.adaworks.com  

 

Re: which language

["Paul E. Bennett"]

In article <370D879A.F72B83B4@camtel.net>
           cmiller@camtel.net "Kevin Miller" writes:

> Does anyone know of a good book that will teach me how to pick the best classes
>  for
> a particular program, when to used derived classes, and important styles (if
>  there
> are any) of classes that I need to know?
> 
> This thread exemplifies my biggest problem as a newbie object oriented coder. 
>  I'm
> sure it is only BECAUSE I'm new, but my c programs are always smaller, quicker,
>  and
> (for me) easier to read than my c++ ones.  I do believe that working with
>  objects
> is better, (since everyone says so :) but at this point, I rarely see the
>  benefit
> I also don't see too much difference in deriving a class from a base, and
>  putting a
> base class variable in the derived class, except for the cool pointer thing. 
>  I'm
> self taught, so I'm well aware that I'm missing some important pieces of
> information, but I'm just not sure where to find them

Nothing wrong with being self taught. It is, though, often harder work to
attain a decent level and you will need someone else around to discuss a
problem sometimes. Sometimes there just isn't the alternative to self 
tutoring.
 
> Also, are there any good websites for people learning c++/object oriented 
> stuff? Thanks for your help.  Maybe someday I can answer a post instead of 
> always asking :)

Ask and ye shall learn if thou art capable of learning.

I trust that you are also tuned in to comp.object (which didn't appear in
the newsgroup list in your message). That would be an appropriate place to
have also asked the above question.

-- 
Paul E. Bennett ................... <peb@tcontec.demon.co.uk>
Forth based HIDECS Consultancy
Tel: +44 (0)7971-620145
Going Forth Safely

Re: which language

[Matthew Heaney]

Kevin Miller <cmiller@camtel.net> writes:

> Also, are there any good websites for people learning c++/object
> oriented stuff?

You may find it helpful to read examples of object-oriented programming.
All the C++ examples in the GoF Design Patterns book have been converted
to Ada95, and are available in the ACM hypermail archives.

<http://www.acm.org/archives/patterns.html>


You can subscribe to the ACM patterns list by sending the message (body)

subscribe patterns <your name>


to the ACM mailing-list server.

<mailto:listserv@acm.org>


If you have any questions about object-oriented programming or design
pattern technology for Ada95, send me some mail or post a message to the
patterns list.

<mailto:patterns@acm.org>
<mailto:matthew_heaney@acm.org>

Matt

Re: which language

[Iain McCracken]

> Seriously, Mr. Edwards has been pretty provocative over the whole thread.
> Ya know, like he thinks he knows something.  Then he  shows us here, that
> he doesn't really have any idea from an object to a whole in the ground
> (I'm sure other posters will make this point better than I.).  So my comment
> really regarded the whole thread.  Nonetheless, in 1999 this comment alone
> is sufficient to raise serious concerns about a professional programmers
> understanding of his/her field.
> 
> emil

Well, everybody knows that objects are the things that you put in the
holes.  But then again, isn't a hole in the ground a class of container?

<;*D

Don't worry, Emil -- I already have a job. :)

--Iain.

Re: which language

[Emil Rojas]

Kevin Miller wrote:

> Does anyone know of a good book that will teach me how to pick the best classes for
> a particular program, when to used derived classes, and important styles (if there
> are any) of classes that I need to know?

I think there are a lot of good books these days.  You need to find some that
appeal to you.  Go to the bookstore find one that feels right.  It will probably
feel right because it talks about things you are interested in doing.

>
>
> This thread exemplifies my biggest problem as a newbie object oriented coder.  I'm
> sure it is only BECAUSE I'm new, but my c programs are always smaller, quicker, and
> (for me) easier to read than my c++ ones.  I do believe that working with objects
> is better, (since everyone says so :) but at this point, I rarely see the benefit
> I also don't see too much difference in deriving a class from a base, and putting a
> base class variable in the derived class, except for the cool pointer thing.  I'm
> self taught, so I'm well aware that I'm missing some important pieces of
> information, but I'm just not sure where to find them

Your comments beg the question what is that motivates object oriented programming.
Be it C, C++, Java, Ada95, etc.  For me it is motivated out the difficulty in
modifying my own code when I have written procedural code, compared to the
experience of modifying OO code.  If code were write once than there would not be
much motivation for OO languages.  Or as Mr. Edwards indicated the same might
be true if most projects where very small.  Fortunately for my employment
opportunities, code is not write once.  In the real world of large (>10000 lines)
developments code requirements always change.  Abstraction is the only why
that I know of to get a hold of the complexity of a large project or even the
need for change in small and moderate size projects.  OO languages are
motivated as tools for better abstraction.

If I am writing what I believe to be one off program to filter some text,
I'm not very keen on doing it in C++, but to pick on Mr. Edwards again
if I am working on a large project where many threads will be sharing
access to the PIC I will strive to make the object as abstract as it
deserves to be, so that I have control over unexpected needs.  My abstraction
most likely will "hide" the PIC and give me control over how it is used.
Now to defend Mr. Edwards, when I implement the functions that actually
talk to the PIC the guts of these functions don't have anything to do with
OO.

I don't know if this helps, but it is largely experiential and experimental.

emil

Re: which language

[Dave Hansen]

Since this is so widely cross-posted, I'll try to keep this short, so
take these suggestions with the appropriate grain of salt...

On Thu, 08 Apr 1999 23:52:43 -0500, Kevin Miller <cmiller@camtel.net>
wrote:

>Does anyone know of a good book that will teach me how to pick the best classes for
>a particular program, when to used derived classes, and important styles (if there
>are any) of classes that I need to know?

ISTM that the best classes are those objects that can be identified by
the user of the system, e.g., "window," "document," "device,"
whatever.

>
>This thread exemplifies my biggest problem as a newbie object oriented coder.  I'm
>sure it is only BECAUSE I'm new, but my c programs are always smaller, quicker, and
>(for me) easier to read than my c++ ones.  I do believe that working with objects

Since you can (almost) take your C programs and compile them as C++,
it would seem that you could write your C++ the same way you write C,
and get identical results (modulo exception handling).  The lesson
here is that "if you don't need a feature, don't use it.

>is better, (since everyone says so :) but at this point, I rarely see the benefit
>I also don't see too much difference in deriving a class from a base, and putting a
>base class variable in the derived class, except for the cool pointer thing.  I'm
>self taught, so I'm well aware that I'm missing some important pieces of
>information, but I'm just not sure where to find them

I've long been told the "object oriented" paradigm consists of three
features: encapsulation, inheritence, and polymorphism.  

Encapsulation is the business of hiding the implementation of an
object behind its interface, i.e., the separation of interface from
implementation.  If an object is accessed only through its interface,
its implementation can be changed without changing any code that uses
the object.  E.g., member functions.

Inheritence is the construction of a new object type based on an old
one.  The new object "is-a" old object with new features.  Placing a
"base class variable" within a new object definition is "composition."
The new object "has-a" old object.  E.g., derived classes.  The
difference is subtle, but important, especially in regard to member
functions.  And the difference _really_ becomes apprent when we add
the third element...

Polymorphism is the ability of a variable to "really" be of different
types at different times, and behave appropriately to its type at the
time.

The classical example is a graphical object that knows how to draw
itself on a screen.  If we have a list of these objects, we can loop
through the list with a call to 

   go_ptr->draw();

and the various objects all know what to do.

This is getting too long, so I'll leave it there.  Hope this helps,

                          -=Dave
Just my (10-010) cents
I can barely speak for myself, so I certainly can't speak for B-Tree.
Change is inevitable.  Progress is not.

Re: which language

[dennison]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1192 bytes --]

In article <370cb1a1.693155218@localhost>,
  Steve@XXX_REMOVE_XXXrsn-tech.demon.co.uk wrote:
> On Wed, 07 Apr 1999 17:55:05 +0100, in <370B8DE8.E4B2898B@online.no>
> "Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen" <tarjei@online.no> wrote:
>

> You know as well as I do that /properly/ learning a language takes
> more than a couple of afternoons with a book to learn the syntax. More
> than a three-day intensive course, even! If there's anything
> substantial in Ada beyond better detection of misplaced semicolons,
> it's going to require a change in mindset that takes time and effort
> to learn.
>
> It /may/ be worth it, I don't dispute that, but it's not a simple
> question of "Look and you will see".

A very good point indeed. I notice a lot of frustration in folks,
particularly those with an non type-safe language background, until they
learn the Ada way of doing things. It is not an easy thing to do for many
people. Your conjecture that a lot of the benifit derives from changing the
way you go about coding is absolutely on the mark.


T.E.D.

-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/       Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own    

Re: which language

[Rufus V. Smith]

Dave Hansen wrote in message <370e103c.6414203@192.168.2.34>...
>Since this is so widely cross-posted, I'll try to keep this short, so
>take these suggestions with the appropriate grain of salt...
>
>Encapsulation is the business of hiding the implementation of an
>object behind its interface, i.e., the separation of interface from
>implementation.  If an object is accessed only through its interface,
>its implementation can be changed without changing any code that uses
>the object.  E.g., member functions.
>
>Inheritence is the construction of a new object type based on an old
>one.  The new object "is-a" old object with new features.  Placing a
>"base class variable" within a new object definition is "composition."

>The new object "has-a" old object.  E.g., derived classes.  The
>difference is subtle, but important, especially in regard to member
>functions.  And the difference _really_ becomes apprent when we add
>the third element...

>

PMBI, but your "e.g. derived classes" is milsplaced.  It's not the has-a
relationship, but an is-a relationship. Classes are "derived" through
"inheritance".

>
>Polymorphism is the ability of a variable to "really" be of different
>types at different times, and behave appropriately to its type at the
>time.
>
>The classical example is a graphical object that knows how to draw
>itself on a screen.  If we have a list of these objects, we can loop
>through the list with a call to
>
>   go_ptr->draw();
>
>and the various objects all know what to do.
>

But point out that for polymorphic capability all those graphical object
classes are
descended (derived) from a common ancestor class (e.g Drawable_Objects)
which contained the (possibly abstract) draw method.

Sorry, I don't mean to feed the digression....

Re: which language

[Dave Hansen]

On Fri, 9 Apr 1999 14:02:03 -0400, "Rufus V. Smith"
<Rufus_Smith@GuntherIntl.com> wrote:

>
>Dave Hansen wrote in message <370e103c.6414203@192.168.2.34>...
[...]
>>Inheritence is the construction of a new object type based on an old
>>one.  The new object "is-a" old object with new features.  Placing a
>>"base class variable" within a new object definition is "composition."
>
>>The new object "has-a" old object.  E.g., derived classes.  The
>>difference is subtle, but important, especially in regard to member
>>functions.  And the difference _really_ becomes apprent when we add
>>the third element...
>
>>
>
>PMBI, but your "e.g. derived classes" is milsplaced.  It's not the has-a
>relationship, but an is-a relationship. Classes are "derived" through
>"inheritance".

Yes, the e.g. was of "Inheritence" rather than "composition."  I could
have been clearer.  Thanks for pointing it out.

[...]
>>
>>   go_ptr->draw();
>>
>>and the various objects all know what to do.
>>
>
>But point out that for polymorphic capability all those graphical object
>classes are
>descended (derived) from a common ancestor class (e.g Drawable_Objects)
>which contained the (possibly abstract) draw method.

Possibly abstract, but definitely virtual.  

Regards,

                          -=Dave
Just my (10-010) cents
I can barely speak for myself, so I certainly can't speak for B-Tree.
Change is inevitable.  Progress is not.

Re: which language

[Al Christians]

Here's an interesting 'which language?' problem:

See:

http://www.paninfo.com.au/intro/littlefishproject_homepage.htm

This is a new project to develop an open source GPL'd patients'
medical records system.  The objective is to create a system
that can be used without charge to bring some benefits of 
modern technology to medical practitioners in impoverished 
parts of the world.  This is laudable.  It would be great to
contribute to such a project and to see it succeed.

Any comments on the 'which language' question for such a system?

They want to run the server part on DOS, Windows, unix, linux, and
Apple. They want to use browsers for the clients.  

The languages choices given on the project's web pages so far are 
Perl cgi, C++, and Java.  Any way that those are good choices for 
a full-featured medical records system?   Those languages look 
like very good choices for no-chargge availability on multiple 
platforms, but are these good choices for a medical records 
system, ie life-critical?  Are there any GPL database systems 
reliable enough for use in such a project?

Is the cathedral model of open-source, perhaps exemplified by GNAT, 
with stable public releases, more appropriate for such a project 
than the alternative open source dribbleware of ever-improving 
betas, patches, fixes, enhancements, contributions and rewrites?  
Is the 'release early and often' heuristic inappropriate for life-
critical systems?

This looks like a very ambitious project.  Any other comments on
how it could possibly succeed?

Al

Re: which language

[Jean-Pierre Rosen]

Richard D Riehle a �crit dans le message
<7eipfl$kat@dfw-ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>...
>  Ada has its role in high-quality, safety-critical embedded software
>  in large-scale environments such as radars, missiles, command and
>  control systems, avionics, and medical equipment. It does not seem
>  to have a role in the development of software in eight-bit
>  controllers for stepper motors on rear-view mirrors.
>
I know at least one project that had to run on tiny chips. The
software was developped (and formally proven for some parts) on a
workstation in Ada, then hand-compiled into the tiny chips.

This approach was found very helpful, since there was no need to chase
logic errors at assembly level.
---------------------------------------------------------
           J-P. Rosen (Rosen.Adalog@wanadoo.fr)
Visit Adalog's web site at http://perso.wanadoo.fr/adalog

Re: which language

[Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen]

Steve Rencontre wrote:

>
>
> It /may/ be worth it, I don't dispute that, but it's not a simple
> question of "Look and you will see".

Perhaps it is a question of "I really don't want to learn something new".
Which is quite normal and understandable.


Greetings,

Re: which language

["Paul E. Bennett"]

In article <370e103c.6414203@192.168.2.34>
           dhansen@btree.com "Dave Hansen" writes:

> I've long been told the "object oriented" paradigm consists of three
> features: encapsulation, inheritence, and polymorphism.  

Interstingly simple concepts.
 
> Encapsulation is the business of hiding the implementation of an
> object behind its interface, i.e., the separation of interface from
> implementation.  If an object is accessed only through its interface,
> its implementation can be changed without changing any code that uses
> the object.  E.g., member functions.

Encapsulation is definitely a Forth strong point and is at the very heart
of Forth (amongst some other attributes). The interface for all Forth words
is mainly through the parameter stack (unless a programmer has determined
otherwise - which is usually more innefficient).
 
> Inheritence is the construction of a new object type based on an old
> one.  The new object "is-a" old object with new features.  Placing a
> "base class variable" within a new object definition is "composition."
> The new object "has-a" old object.  E.g., derived classes.  The
> difference is subtle, but important, especially in regard to member
> functions.  And the difference _really_ becomes apprent when we add
> the third element...

Again, this is very easy in Forth.

  : old-object .... ;
  : new-object .... old-object .... ;

  (the .... bits could be any other code of the function)

> Polymorphism is the ability of a variable to "really" be of different
> types at different times, and behave appropriately to its type at the
> time.
>
> The classical example is a graphical object that knows how to draw
> itself on a screen.  If we have a list of these objects, we can loop
> through the list with a call to 
> 
>    go_ptr->draw();
> 
> and the various objects all know what to do.

As Forth generally does not know about types, this is a little more 
difficult to do and requires some effort on the part of the programmer
to organise this. However, Forth variants like FIFTH and MOPS provide
the necessary capabilities. I have seen it said that a mere 20 new words
included in a Forth will make it an early binding form of OO. Late 
binding of objects is rather more difficult again.
 
> This is getting too long, so I'll leave it there.  Hope this helps,

It would be interesting to see how other languages not declared as OO 
measure up for their OOness.

-- 
Paul E. Bennett ................... <peb@tcontec.demon.co.uk>
Forth based HIDECS Consultancy
Tel: +44 (0)7971-620145
Going Forth Safely

Re: which language

[Steve Rencontre]

On Thu, 08 Apr 1999 23:52:43 -0500, in <370D879A.F72B83B4@camtel.net>
Kevin Miller <cmiller@camtel.net> wrote:

>Does anyone know of a good book that will teach me how to pick the best classes for
>a particular program, when to used derived classes, and important styles (if there
>are any) of classes that I need to know?

Try "Design Patterns", by Gamma, Helm, Johnson and Vlissides (aka the
"Gang of Four" or GoF). Definitely one of the classics in the field of
OO design. It doesn't simply tell you OO is wonderful, but /shows/ you
how many problems are at root the same, and how the collective
experience of many designers can be encapsulated into a reusable
solution: a "pattern".

>This thread exemplifies my biggest problem as a newbie object oriented coder.  I'm
>sure it is only BECAUSE I'm new, but my c programs are always smaller, quicker, and
>(for me) easier to read than my c++ ones.  I do believe that working with objects
>is better, (since everyone says so :) but at this point, I rarely see the benefit
>I also don't see too much difference in deriving a class from a base, and putting a
>base class variable in the derived class, except for the cool pointer thing.  I'm
>self taught, so I'm well aware that I'm missing some important pieces of
>information, but I'm just not sure where to find them

I don't know if it's so much a question of finding the information, as
finding the mindset to benefit from the information. I read a lot of
articles about OO when it first started becoming trendy, but it wasn't
until I'd actually been /doing/ it for a while that it really
'clicked'.


--
Steve Rencontre, Design Consultant
http://www.rsn-tech.demon.co.uk/  --  remember to despam return address

Re: which language

[Steve Rencontre]

On Sat, 10 Apr 1999 08:41:31 +0100, in <370F00AA.16FF4B78@online.no>
"Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen" <tarjei@online.no> wrote:

>Perhaps it is a question of "I really don't want to learn something new".
>Which is quite normal and understandable.

You don't know me! I have spent my life learning new things, and
continue to do so. Trouble is, there are too many new things for even
a genius polymath like myself to learn all of them :-)

If I see the market for C/C++ skills drying up, or if I see people
earning twice as much as me for no other reason than they're using
Ada, that'll change the balance, but right now, I just don't think yet
another programming language is top of the list.
--
Steve Rencontre, Design Consultant
http://www.rsn-tech.demon.co.uk/  --  remember to despam return address

Re: which language

[Steve Barnes]

In article <370E9369.A595DF6E@easystreet.com>, Al Christians
<achrist@easystreet.com> writes
>
>Is the cathedral model of open-source, perhaps exemplified by GNAT, 
>with stable public releases, more appropriate for such a project 
>than the alternative open source dribbleware of ever-improving 
>betas, patches, fixes, enhancements, contributions and rewrites?  
>Is the 'release early and often' heuristic inappropriate for life-
>critical systems?
>
>This looks like a very ambitious project.  Any other comments on
>how it could possibly succeed?
>
Get a _very_ good international lawyer to contribute to the project
_very_ early on by drafting out a) the disclaimer the users have to
agree and b) the statement of responsibility the developers have to
sign.

Otherwise, developing on the open-source model a 'life critical' system
that is going to be distributed to some areas of the world could leave
any contributor/organiser liable to penalties ranging from fines through
prison sentences up to the death penalty.

-- 
Steve Barnes.
Q: What does the "real time" in "Real Time Computing" mean?
A: Usually about 3 a.m.

Re: which language

[Stephen Leake]

peb@tcontec.demon.co.uk ("Paul E. Bennett") writes:

> > Encapsulation is the business of hiding the implementation of an
> > object behind its interface, i.e., the separation of interface from
> > implementation.  If an object is accessed only through its interface,
> > its implementation can be changed without changing any code that uses
> > the object.  E.g., member functions.
> 
> Encapsulation is definitely a Forth strong point and is at the very heart
> of Forth (amongst some other attributes). The interface for all Forth words
> is mainly through the parameter stack (unless a programmer has determined
> otherwise - which is usually more innefficient).

Huh? Forth has _no_ provision for _hiding_. Any word can call any
other word, and all variables are global (unless I've missed a big
change in the last 5 years). And as you point out, the "normal" way to
interface to a word is via the stack, but the language in no way
enforces this.

It is possible to write highly structured code in Forth, but the
language provides no help in detecting violations of the intended
structure. Look at Ada packages for real encapsulation. Even C
"static" variables and functions are more encapsulated than Forth
words.

-- Stephe

Re: which language (Ada newsgroup only related post)

[MikeJr]

 
The question we need to ask ourselfs is, why has not Ada become more
widely used while lesser quality languages are being used so much more?

If we do agree that Ada is a better language to write good software with, 
then why do companies choose to use different and worst languages??

No one has yet gave us a clear answer on this is.

What is it that makes a programmer willing to spend hours and days debugging
a problem that an Ada compiler could have flaged it for them at compile time,
but the same person would become so annoyed and frustrated having to  
spend an extra hour to get a clean compile with Ada as compared to 
the other languages?

of course if you think that Ada is not the better language, then no need
for you to ponder on this point.

Mike jr

Re: which language

[James Meyer]

On 12 Apr 1999 13:27:53 -0400, Stephen Leake
<Stephen.Leake@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:

>Huh? Forth has _no_ provision for _hiding_. Any word can call any
>other word, and all variables are global (unless I've missed a big
>change in the last 5 years).

	You've missed a lot if you haven't seen how FORTH uses its
dictionary structure.  The words "context" and "current" for example
make it very easy to hide an entire dictionary full of words from the
system.

	Jim

Re: which language

[Edward J. Prochak]

Steve@nospam wrote:
> 
[snip]
> 
> This is another proof as somwone else said that Ada programmers do not
> live in the real world and do not know how practical commerical shops
> make code. I suggest that Ada programmers leave this fanatsy world they live in
> and get coding jobs in a real life commerical software shops to see
> how code is actually written.
> 
> Steve

this is one of the most tunnel vision views I've seen. Not all software
is
commercial off-the-shelf packages or internal packages and systems built
for
a single company (eg, custom payroll).

Steve, consider that software exists in your PC but it also exists in
your
microwave, your car, the plane you flew last week, the phone system that
connected you to your ISP, and also in the medical lab that handles your
blood work when you get a check up.

It seems yours is the narrow view. ADA folks may not be as narrow minded
as
you would suggest. It's a big software world out there. get used to it.

ed

Re: which language

[Stephen Pelc]

Stephen Leake <Stephen.Leake@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote in article
<uemlpwxye.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov>...
> > Encapsulation is definitely a Forth strong point and is at the very
heart
> > of Forth (amongst some other attributes). The interface for all Forth
words
> > is mainly through the parameter stack (unless a programmer has
determined
> > otherwise - which is usually more innefficient).
> 
> Huh? Forth has _no_ provision for _hiding_. Any word can call any
> other word, and all variables are global (unless I've missed a big
> change in the last 5 years). And as you point out, the "normal" way to
> interface to a word is via the stack, but the language in no way
> enforces this.
Yes, you have missed a great deal. Our Forth compilers generate
native code with good optimisation, support multiple vocabulary
management (for name hiding), support local variables and structures,
and much more.
-- 
Stephen Pelc, MicroProcessor Engineering - More real, less time
133 Hill Lane, Shirley, Southampton SO15 5AF, England
tel: +44 1703 631441, fax: +44 1703 339691, net: sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk
web: http://www.mpeltd.demon.co.uk
 

Re: which language

["Paul E. Bennett"]

In article <uemlpwxye.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov>
           Stephen.Leake@gsfc.nasa.gov "Stephen Leake" writes:

> > Encapsulation is definitely a Forth strong point and is at the very heart
> > of Forth (amongst some other attributes). The interface for all Forth words
> > is mainly through the parameter stack (unless a programmer has determined
> > otherwise - which is usually more innefficient).
> 
> Huh? Forth has _no_ provision for _hiding_. Any word can call any
> other word, and all variables are global (unless I've missed a big
> change in the last 5 years). And as you point out, the "normal" way to
> interface to a word is via the stack, but the language in no way
> enforces this.
>
> It is possible to write highly structured code in Forth, but the
> language provides no help in detecting violations of the intended
> structure. Look at Ada packages for real encapsulation. Even C
> "static" variables and functions are more encapsulated than Forth
> words.

You can either be molly-coddled (and restricted) or allowed to make the 
biggest mess-up if you choose. Forth is a flavour of the latter but to
violate the encapsulation rules gets just plain ugly. No-one mentioned 
that "hiding" had to mean hidden from view of the programmer (person).

-- 
Paul E. Bennett ................... <peb@tcontec.demon.co.uk>
Forth based HIDECS Consultancy
Tel: +44 (0)7971-620145
Going Forth Safely

Re: which language

[Bill Ghrist]

Dave Hansen wrote:

> [...No more TVs made in America...]

No more TVs designed in America--maybe, I'm not sure.
No more TVs made in America--wrong.  Sony makes TVs in New Stanton PA.

Regards,
Bill Ghrist

Re: which language (Ada newsgroup only related post)

[Steve Doiel]

MikeJr@YYYYYY wrote in message <7euia6$se8@drn.newsguy.com>...
>
>The question we need to ask ourselfs is, why has not Ada become more
>widely used while lesser quality languages are being used so much more?
>
>If we do agree that Ada is a better language to write good software with,
>then why do companies choose to use different and worst languages??
>
>No one has yet gave us a clear answer on this is.
>


I can only speak for myself, and feel compelled to,
Reasons for not using Ada:

1. Until (relatively) recently, trying Ada was cost prohibitive to explore
when
    evaluating new development tools.  This was initially corrected by GNAT
    and (some) other compiler vendors have followed suit.

    BTW: I see this as the biggest historical obstacle to the use of Ada.

2. Ada development tools are inferior to tools available for other
    languages.  But at the same time these tools have been more
    $$expensive$$.

    Even today if you compare debugging in ObjectAda or GNAT to
    debugging in Delphi or Visual C++, the non-Ada debuggers work a
    LOT better.

    The language itself goes a long way, and personally I belive Ada 95
    is much better than Delphi or Visual C++.  It is difficult to explain
    to the peers that I convinced to go with Ada 95 when they are trying
    to debug a program and the debugger crashes or they can't look at
    the contents of a variable.

3. Inertia.  Why go to XXX when everyone else is using YYY and there
    is much more support for YYY.

    Of course this perpetuates the problem.


It would be interesting to hear from the vendors, but I am under the
impression that even with the demise of the Ada mandate, the use of
Ada is on the rise.

SteveD

Re: which language (Ada newsgroup only related post)

[Tom Moran]

>What is it that makes a programmer willing to spend hours and days debugging
>a problem that an Ada compiler could have flaged it for them at compile time,
>but the same person would become so annoyed and frustrated having to  
>spend an extra hour to get a clean compile with Ada as compared to 
>the other languages?
A little survey of differences in the psychology of Adaphiles vs
Adaphobes would be extremely interesting - and I would thnk, valuable
to vendors of Ada tools.

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Phlip wrote:
> 
> Eric Doenges wrote:
> 
> >...I doubt that english
> >has absorbed anything of non-European languages...
> 
> Okay.
> 
Zero? Zenith? Azimuth? (lots of Arabic words - do those count?)

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Steve Rencontre wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 07 Apr 1999 23:00:31 GMT, in <7ego2a$v1q$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
> Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> 
> >Generally these days, serious use of Ada 95 is in the same
> >ball park of cost as serious use of C++ on many systems.
> 
> Sorry, I didn't simply mean purchase price of compiler, etc. 'Cost'
> includes the time and effort required to learn the language
> /properly/. It includes the extra effort to keep current in multiple
> fields if I don't want to commit fully to the Ada camp.
> 
So is every programmer born speaking C/C++? Or did someone have to train
them? They were taught it in school? Lots of schools teach Ada in at
least some of their classes.

It seems to me that the cost of getting up to speed in Ada is a) no
better/worse than it is to get up to speed using any language/toolset
and b) so far down in the weeds of any but the smallest projects that it
is not worth getting one's panties in a bunch over it. Sure, its a cost,
but its just not that big and, given the fact that for almost any new
project there is going to be a learning curve, the language education
part of it is only one small part of many things to learn about.

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Stephen Pelc wrote:
> Most of the embedded systems I've worked on have a product life that
> is considerably longer than the period for which a particular
> programming language is fashionable. This makes much of the debate
> about "which programming language" fairly irrelevant. In addition,
> there seems to be no quantitative evidence that code from one
> language is any more reliable than that from another. I will argue
> that system architecture has a far larger impact than the choice
> of programming language.
> --

Sorry. There is quantitative evidence that code from one language is
more reliable than that from another. I've got metrics here that have
been collected over a 10 year span which demonstrate that a control
programmed in Ada has fewer errors *by a factor of four* when compared
to a similar control in another language. And that's just my local data.
There are other studies which are publically available which demonstrate
both fewer errors and increased productivity.

Ada pays off on systems of significant size and significant life span.
It makes a profit for the stockholders and reduces exposure to
liability. People don't have to like that or believe that or act on
that, but it is an observable fact.

-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Re: which language

[Stephen Maudsley]

Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> wrote in message
news:37148B5B.8B46C923@pwfl.com...
> Phlip wrote:
> >
> > Eric Doenges wrote:
> >
> > >...I doubt that english
> > >has absorbed anything of non-European languages...
> >
> > Okay.
> >
> Zero? Zenith? Azimuth? (lots of Arabic words - do those count?)

A lot of Indian words - umbrella, bungalow, tea, chess (or is that from
the Chinese cha?).
--
Stephen Maudsley mailto:Stephen.Maudsley@esgem.com
Esgem Limited: embedded system design http://www.esgem.com
Tel: +44-1453-521626 Mobile: +44-370-810991
Personal pages: http://www.esgem.com/people/Stephen.Maudsley

Re: which language

[Emil Rojas]

Marin David Condic wrote:

> <cut>
>
> Sorry. There is quantitative evidence that code from one language is
> more reliable than that from another. I've got metrics here that have
> been collected over a 10 year span which demonstrate that a control
> programmed in Ada has fewer errors *by a factor of four* when compared
> to a similar control in another language. And that's just my local data.
> There are other studies which are publically available which demonstrate
> both fewer errors and increased productivity.

I have a couple of different responses to the notion there is evidence
that one language is better than another for the same task based on
the error rate.  First, my head kind of swims trying to imagine how
one would come up with a test for this that was not biased.  Certainly
no industry real world figures would be valid as they would be skewed
by the real world processes of choosing Ada over another language
or visa versa.  So then I imagine an incoming class of Freshman
who are randomly divided  ... not I'm sure no one has done that
experiment.

I am also impressed that people feel that they have such strong evidence.
I definitely see ways in which a language can help reduce errors, but
I wonder how Ada contains those qualities in ways that C++ and Java
do not.  Please note the exclusion of standard C.  If this guys is trying
to sell the notion that Ada is better than C or assembly, well that's fine
but that argument was won so long ago that I had forgotten it.

And or yes, what is that old saw about statistics?

>
> Ada pays off on systems of significant size and significant life span.
> It makes a profit for the stockholders and reduces exposure to
> liability. People don't have to like that or believe that or act on
> that, but it is an observable fact.
>

If this is the case than you don't need to tell us, just invest all of your
time and money in Ada.

BTW, I have been impressed enough with the passion of the Ada95 folks
on this thread that I intend to pick up a book on Ada95 the next time I
am in a technical book store.  I checked out Ada95 books on Amazon.com
but none of you guys had written reviews, so I decided to wait until I
could leaf through the pages.

NTL,  I would be more interested in how you feel Ada helps you
solve problems that other later generation languages do not, than
hearing about dubious studies undoubtedly conducted by folks that
have already chosen sides.

emil

Re: which language

[Emil Rojas]

Marin David Condic wrote:

> <cut>
> It seems to me that the cost of getting up to speed in Ada is a) no
> better/worse than it is to get up to speed using any language/toolset
> and b) so far down in the weeds of any but the smallest projects that it
> is not worth getting one's panties in a bunch over it. Sure, its a cost,
> but its just not that big and, given the fact that for almost any new
> project there is going to be a learning curve, the language education
> part of it is only one small part of many things to learn about.
>

One of the major problems with OO languages is that most programmers
_do_not_ understand the concepts that drive the language.  I would
imagine that Ada95 has the same problem.  Many people are still
developing in C because finding programmers that are capable of
doing more is difficult.  So I would not trivialize the cost of training
people to use a language in the way it is intended.  One of the
beauties of C++ is exactly that it allows programmers used to
being stupid get smarter a little bit at a time.  Unfortunately, it
can get the over ambitious in trouble.  From the little I know,
I suspect that the learning curve to using Ada95 is much bigger than that of

learning C++ if you are currently a C programmer.

emil

Re: which language

[Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen]

Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> writes:

> Steve Rencontre wrote:
> > 
> > On Wed, 07 Apr 1999 23:00:31 GMT, in <7ego2a$v1q$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
> > Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> > 
> > >Generally these days, serious use of Ada 95 is in the same
> > >ball park of cost as serious use of C++ on many systems.
> > 
> > Sorry, I didn't simply mean purchase price of compiler, etc. 'Cost'
> > includes the time and effort required to learn the language
> > /properly/. It includes the extra effort to keep current in multiple
> > fields if I don't want to commit fully to the Ada camp.
> > 
> So is every programmer born speaking C/C++? Or did someone have to train
> them? They were taught it in school? Lots of schools teach Ada in at
> least some of their classes.
> 
> It seems to me that the cost of getting up to speed in Ada is a) no
> better/worse than it is to get up to speed using any language/toolset
> and b) so far down in the weeds of any but the smallest projects that it
> is not worth getting one's panties in a bunch over it. Sure, its a cost,
> but its just not that big and, given the fact that for almost any new
> project there is going to be a learning curve, the language education
> part of it is only one small part of many things to learn about.
> 
> MDC
> -- 
> Marin David Condic
> Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
> United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
> M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
> ***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

I can second that. Many years ago, we bid for a contract to develop
the Army Tactical Command and Communication Information System
demonstration facility (ATCCIS - DF) for Shape Technical Center. After
we had got the contract, STC changed its mind, and requested that the
software should be written in Ada (Ada83), the original specification
was C. We were a bit worried, because none of the programmers on the
team had developed a system in Ada. Our time was limited, so we had to
make do with a short course, but it proved sufficient to get
started. In practice, I think we used a subset of Ada corresponding
roughly to C, plus the generics. Tasking was out, as we needed to use
separate processes because of the underlying DBMS.
It certainly did not take more time in total to do the project in
Ada than we had estimated when we thought we were going to use C. Our
inexperience in Ada was more than outweighed by Ada saving us from
many of the common C mistakes, and our design was free from language
bias anyway. The most annoying thing was that we had
to use a rather flaky beta release of embedded SQL for Ada, and that
one of the compilers did not understand that a C function might change
the contents of a structure accessed by a pointer...

Ole-Hj. Kristensen

-- 
E pluribus Unix

Re: which language

[Steve O'Neill]

Emil Rojas wrote:
> One of the major problems with OO languages is that most programmers
> _do_not_ understand the concepts that drive the language.  

We definitely agree on this.

>I would imagine that Ada95 has the same problem.  Many people are still
>developing in C because finding programmers that are capable of
>doing more is difficult.  So I would not trivialize the cost of >training people to use a language in the way it is intended.  

Any language - be it Ada, C, C++, or Java...

>One of the beauties of C++ is exactly that it allows programmers used 
>to being stupid get smarter a little bit at a time.  Unfortunately, it
>can get the over ambitious in trouble.  

The same can be said for Ada83->Ada95 transition or Ada95 alone.  It is
quite easy and normal to learn and apply only the portions of Ada95 that
apply to your problem domain.  If you don't understand or need OO or
tasking, don't use it.  Once this is understood it is then easy to
expand your horizons gradually.

>From the little I know, I suspect that the learning curve to using 
>Ada95 is much bigger than that of learning C++ if you are currently a C 
>programmer.

Here I differ somewhat with your opinion.  Syntactically, yes C++ seems
like C on steroids.  But the reality is that it is conceptually in a
whole different realm.  C does not foster the kind of design thought
process that C++ does.  I would contend that the fact that Ada83
supported object-based programming through the concepts of encapsulation
and information hiding makes the leap from it to OOP shorter than the
leap that a C programmer must make to full & proper use of C++.  

But these are, of course, just opinions.

Steve O'Neill

Re: which language

[Jerry Petrey]

Emil Rojas wrote:
> 
> 
> BTW, I have been impressed enough with the passion of the Ada95 folks
> on this thread that I intend to pick up a book on Ada95 the next time I
> am in a technical book store.  I checked out Ada95 books on Amazon.com
> but none of you guys had written reviews, so I decided to wait until I
> could leaf through the pages.
> 
> emil

 
Look at "Programming in Ada95" by Barnes on Amazon and you will find a
number of us have written reviews.  It is a great book.

Jerry


=====================================================================
=  Jerry Petrey - Consultant Software Engineer  - Member Team Ada   =
=                 Lockheed Martin                 Member Team Forth =
=====================================================================

Re: which language

[Stephen Leake]

notjimbob@worldnet.att.net (James Meyer) writes:

> On 12 Apr 1999 13:27:53 -0400, Stephen Leake
> <Stephen.Leake@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:
> 
> >Huh? Forth has _no_ provision for _hiding_. Any word can call any
> >other word, and all variables are global (unless I've missed a big
> >change in the last 5 years).
> 
> 	You've missed a lot if you haven't seen how FORTH uses its
> dictionary structure.  The words "context" and "current" for example
> make it very easy to hide an entire dictionary full of words from the
> system.

Hmm, you're right, I forgot about multiple dictionaries. Actually, the
system I used limited you to 8 dictionaries, so it wasn't useful for
encapsulating small modules. 

Is there a Forth standard? Does is support arbitrarily many
dictionaries?

-- Stephe

Re: which language

[Dave Hansen]

Off topic, but I had to look it up...

On Wed, 14 Apr 1999 16:52:26 +0200, "David Brown"
<david@westcontrol.com> wrote:
[...]
>An interesting imported word is "host", from which words such as "hostile"
>and "hospital" are derived.  "Host" comes from Hebrew, and the two
>apparently contradictory meanings come from an old Hebrew saying that your
>safest place is in the house of your enemy.

Close, but my dictionary traces the etymology of "host" to the Latin
hospes, meaning guest, host, or stranger, while "hostile" comes from
the Latin hostis, meaning enemy.  They both comes from the
Indo-European form ghos-ti-, which is also an ancestor of the Russian
gospodin.

Bet you wanted to know all _that_.  ;-)  Regards,


                          -=Dave
Just my (10-010) cents
I can barely speak for myself, so I certainly can't speak for B-Tree.
Change is inevitable.  Progress is not.

Re: which language

[Stephen Pelc]

Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> wrote in article
<3714929D.DB3F3869@pwfl.com>...
> Sorry. There is quantitative evidence that code from one language is
> more reliable than that from another. I've got metrics here that have
> been collected over a 10 year span which demonstrate that a control
> programmed in Ada has fewer errors *by a factor of four* when compared
> to a similar control in another language. And that's just my local data.
> There are other studies which are publically available which demonstrate
> both fewer errors and increased productivity.
Please refer me to this information - URL?

I'm glad to hear that such information exists. How is it related to level
of abstraction? Does a programmer have a higher level of abstraction in
your Ada metrics, and so produce code that has one quarter of the number
of lines of code? If that is so, the benefit of Ada is only from the
level of abstraction. And I'm not denying the benefit of that.

How much of the benefit is from the compiler checking. I am regularly
appalled at the amount of production C code that is generated with
very loose checking. Turning on strict checking is a major win.
-- 
Stephen Pelc, MicroProcessor Engineering - More real, less time
133 Hill Lane, Shirley, Southampton SO15 5AF, England
tel: +44 1703 631441, fax: +44 1703 339691, net: sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk
web: http://www.mpeltd.demon.co.uk

Re: which language

[Rufus V. Smith]

Cool Dictionary you've got there Dave.

Dave Hansen wrote in message <3714e45e.20128022@192.168.2.34>...
>Off topic, but I had to look it up...
>
>On Wed, 14 Apr 1999 16:52:26 +0200, "David Brown"
><david@westcontrol.com> wrote:
>[...]
>>An interesting imported word is "host", from which words such as "hostile"
>>and "hospital" are derived.  "Host" comes from Hebrew, and the two
>>apparently contradictory meanings come from an old Hebrew saying that your
>>safest place is in the house of your enemy.
>
>Close, but my dictionary traces the etymology of "host" to the Latin
>hospes, meaning guest, host, or stranger, while "hostile" comes from
>the Latin hostis, meaning enemy.  They both comes from the
>Indo-European form ghos-ti-, which is also an ancestor of the Russian
>gospodin.
>
>Bet you wanted to know all _that_.  ;-)  Regards,
>
>
>                          -=Dave
>Just my (10-010) cents
>I can barely speak for myself, so I certainly can't speak for B-Tree.
>Change is inevitable.  Progress is not.

Re: which language

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <3714A191.2419F186@lapel.com>, Emil Rojas <emil@lapel.com> writes:

> 
> 
> Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
>> <cut>
>> It seems to me that the cost of getting up to speed in Ada is a) no
>> better/worse than it is to get up to speed using any language/toolset
>> and b) so far down in the weeds of any but the smallest projects that it
>> is not worth getting one's panties in a bunch over it. Sure, its a cost,
>> but its just not that big and, given the fact that for almost any new
>> project there is going to be a learning curve, the language education
>> part of it is only one small part of many things to learn about.
>>
> 
> One of the major problems with OO languages is that most programmers
> _do_not_ understand the concepts that drive the language.  I would
> imagine that Ada95 has the same problem.

You are imagining things.  Certainly someone who is going to write
object oriented program has to understand object oriented concepts,
but it is perfectly possible to write a useful program in Ada that
is not object oriented.

>                                           Many people are still
> developing in C because finding programmers that are capable of
> doing more is difficult.  So I would not trivialize the cost of training
> people to use a language in the way it is intended.

Since Ada is not exclusively object-oriented, "the way it is intended"
does not necessarily include programming in an object-oriented style.
That depends entirely on the design of the project at hand.

>                                                      One of the
> beauties of C++ is exactly that it allows programmers used to
> being stupid get smarter a little bit at a time.  Unfortunately, it
> can get the over ambitious in trouble.  From the little I know,
> I suspect that the learning curve to using Ada95 is much bigger than that of
> 
> learning C++ if you are currently a C programmer.

From the little that I know, I suspect the reverse :-).

At any rate, I would not want to populate a project with people
who only knew one language, even if it were my favorite language.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: which language

["Paul E. Bennett"]

In article <3714929D.DB3F3869@pwfl.com>
           diespammer@pwfl.com "Marin David Condic" writes:

> Stephen Pelc wrote:
> > Most of the embedded systems I've worked on have a product life that
> > is considerably longer than the period for which a particular
> > programming language is fashionable. This makes much of the debate
> > about "which programming language" fairly irrelevant. In addition,
> > there seems to be no quantitative evidence that code from one
> > language is any more reliable than that from another. I will argue
> > that system architecture has a far larger impact than the choice
> > of programming language.
> > --
> 
> Sorry. There is quantitative evidence that code from one language is
> more reliable than that from another. I've got metrics here that have
> been collected over a 10 year span which demonstrate that a control
> programmed in Ada has fewer errors *by a factor of four* when compared
> to a similar control in another language. And that's just my local data.
> There are other studies which are publically available which demonstrate
> both fewer errors and increased productivity.
> 
> Ada pays off on systems of significant size and significant life span.
> It makes a profit for the stockholders and reduces exposure to
> liability. People don't have to like that or believe that or act on
> that, but it is an observable fact.

So, is there a published article available with this data, or are you 
planning to do one.
 

-- 
Paul E. Bennett ................... <peb@tcontec.demon.co.uk>
Forth based HIDECS Consultancy
Tel: +44 (0)7971-620145
Going Forth Safely

Re: which language (Ada newsgroup only related post)

[Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen]

MikeJr@YYYYYY wrote in message <7euia6$se8@drn.newsguy.com>...
>
>The question we need to ask ourselfs is, why has not Ada become more
>widely used while lesser quality languages are being used so much more?
>
>If we do agree that Ada is a better language to write good software with,
>then why do companies choose to use different and worst languages??
>
>No one has yet gave us a clear answer on this is.


I suggest you read Norman Dixon's "On the Psycology of Miletary Incompetence".
That should give you a few clues.



Greetings,

Re: which language

[David Brown]

Eric Doenges wrote in message ...
>samiam@cisco.com (Scott A. Moore) writes:
>
>
>While I could imagine that english is probably the easiest European
>language to learn to a 'survival-grade' level, especially for
>non-Europeans (it's certainly easier than German),


As far as I can judge (as a native English speaker, it is difficult to be
objective), I suspect that Spanish is easier to learn than English as it is
far more consistent.  German grammer is significantly different from English
grammer, but is it harder for someone with a completly unrelated mother
tongue?  I think your comment is a rather sweeping generalisation, with no
justification (not surprising really, since this is supposed to be a thread
about computer languages :) ).

> I think that english is
>paramount because large parts of the world were more or less dominated by
>english-speaking countries the last two or three centuries (the British
>Empire and the U.S. of A.).

If I remember my history correctly, USA was dominated by the British (the
English, in practice), and when they became independant (a good idea - as a
Scot, I know what it means to live in a country dominated and abused by the
English), USA then changed language to American English - making changes to
the spelling for no other reason than to be different.  Quite petty, really,
and (along with even sillier petty changes to the imperial measurement
system) a real hassle for everyone with international considerations.

Large parts of the world are dominated by Spanish (and, to a lesser extent,
Portuguese, Dutch and French) as a result of their colonies.

> I'm no linguist, but I doubt that english
>has absorbed anything of non-European languages.
>


Have you heard of the term "Indo-european languages" ?  Most European
languages, including English, have the same origins as Indian-subcontentent
languages such as Hindu.

David Brown

Re: which language

[David Brown]

Stephen Maudsley wrote in message <7f258o$p0d$1@plutonium.btinternet.com>...
>
>A lot of Indian words - umbrella, bungalow, tea, chess (or is that from
>the Chinese cha?).
>--


Presumably you meant "... tea (or is that from the Chinease cha?), chess",
in which case you are correct.

An interesting imported word is "host", from which words such as "hostile"
and "hospital" are derived.  "Host" comes from Hebrew, and the two
apparently contradictory meanings come from an old Hebrew saying that your
safest place is in the house of your enemy.

David Brown

Re: which language

[Karel Th�nissen]

Stephen Maudsley wrote:

[...]

> A lot of Indian words - umbrella, bungalow, tea, chess (or is that
< from> the Chinese cha?).

Of course umbrella is from Italian:

ombra      : shadow
ombrello   : rain screen
ombrellino : sun screen

Etymology: originally the device was used to provide shadow, only a few
centuries ago it was used to provide cover against the rain. The ending
in -ino indicates smallness. Similar words exist in other Romance
languages, because of the common root in Latin:

umbra   : shadow
umbella : sun screen

So there is a Latin root for the word umbrella, when the introduction of
the device in Europe still had to wait for more than 1 and a half
millenium.

-- 

Groeten, Karel Th�nissen

Hello Technologies develops high integrity software for complex systems

Re: which language

[Michael Stark]

David Brown wrote:
> 
> Stephen Maudsley wrote in message <7f258o$p0d$1@plutonium.btinternet.com>...
> >
> >A lot of Indian words - umbrella, bungalow, tea, chess (or is that from
> >the Chinese cha?).
> >--
> 
> Presumably you meant "... tea (or is that from the Chinease cha?), chess",
> in which case you are correct.
> 

I thought chess was Persian in origin -- "shah mat" = "checkmate" and
all that stuff...  any real experts on chess out there??

Mike

ps I know this is way off topic, but it is fun to see how literate us
there techies can be, so I continue the thread ;)
<snip> 
> David Brown

-- 
Michael Stark
Goddard Research & Study Fellow
University of Maryland, College Park
e-mail: mstark@cs.umd.edu
phone: (301) 405-2721
"I'm not an athlete, lady, I'm a ballplayer"  -- John Kruk

Re: which language

[Robert S. White]

In article <u3e23xdor.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov>, Stephen.Leake@gsfc.nasa.gov says...
>
>notjimbob@worldnet.att.net (James Meyer) writes:
>
>> On 12 Apr 1999 13:27:53 -0400, Stephen Leake
>> <Stephen.Leake@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:
>> 
>> >Huh? Forth has _no_ provision for _hiding_. Any word can call any
>> >other word, and all variables are global (unless I've missed a big
>> >change in the last 5 years).
>> 
>>       You've missed a lot if you haven't seen how FORTH uses its
>> dictionary structure.  The words "context" and "current" for example
>> make it very easy to hide an entire dictionary full of words from the
>> system.
>
>Hmm, you're right, I forgot about multiple dictionaries. Actually, the
>system I used limited you to 8 dictionaries, so it wasn't useful for
>encapsulating small modules. 
>
>Is there a Forth standard? 

  FORTH-83 STANDARD
  A Publication of the FORTH Standards Team

  August 1983

  Mountain View Press, Inc.
  ISBN 0-914699-03-2

My copy is even embossed with a circular pressed stamp (like a
notary stamp) saying "FORTH 83
                       FST
                      STANDARD"

 The Foreward in this standard talks about a FORTH-77, interim 
FORTH-78 and a 1980 published FORTH-79 standard.  I don't know
if there are later standards.

>Does is support arbitrarily many
>dictionaries? 

  Well the FORTH-83 standard does have the DEFINITIONS and 
VOCABULARY words along with words like ASSEMBLER which use them. I'm
a bit rusty on FORTH since I last used it on my homebrewed/handwired 
6502 system (FIGFORTH) and then later on a homebrew Z80 CP/M system 
(FORTH-83 standard MVP-FORTH) from the late 70's to mid 80's.  

  Elizabeth Rather could  give a much better answer to your questions.

_____________________________________________________________________
Robert S. White         -- An embedded systems software engineer
e-mail reply to reverse of ( add .'s ):  net mcleodusa shift2 r white
             or do a "Reply To All" for direct eMailed cc'd followups.

Re: which language

[Scott A. Moore]

In article <371600ca.5850192@192.168.2.34>
dhansen@btree.com (Dave Hansen) wrote:

> On Thu, 15 Apr 1999 00:11:32 GMT, kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry
> Kilgallen) wrote:
> 
>>In article <01be86a7$24358420$0200a8c0@stephen>, "Stephen Pelc" 
<sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>
>>> How much of the benefit is from the compiler checking. I am regularly
>>> appalled at the amount of production C code that is generated with
>>> very loose checking. Turning on strict checking is a major win.
>>
>>For Ada compile time, of course, strict checking is always "on",
>>and personally I find that a tremendous morale boost for the
>>individual programmer.  Each defect found at compile time is
>>on that does not have to be found the hard way.
>>
> So why do so few C programmer bother to lint their code?
> 
> An unrepentant linter,
> 
>                           -=Dave

We use the equivalent in GCC, the -wall (check all) parameter.
I hate that flag, but it does make the programs cleaner. I think
the reason that deep error checking in C in general is annoying is
because of the language. Since lots of stupid things can be
syntactically correct, you are reduced to reading through warnings to
see if there might be a real problem, for example:

   while (i = 1) ...

Might be stupid, but it is correct. There are two solutions for this,
both equally bad, IMHO. The first is to ignore the warnings that the
program issues. The second is to correct every warning.
The first solution is a deasease of C; Tons of programs produce
warnings on every compile, leading programmers to be complacent
about seeing errors in the output. The second leads to massaging
the code just to make the compiler happy.

                               [sam]

The year 2000. The stock market hitting 10,000.
These events prove once and for all that we
have ten fingers......

Re: which language

[Al Christians]

Dave Hansen wrote:
> So why do so few C programmer bother to lint their code?
> 

The lint I used produced so many messages, mostly ignorable, that it
was a major effort to get through all the messages for a project.
Even when we had the code as good as we wanted it to be, and I'm
reasonably intolerant of the bad things that C/C++ might allow,
it was about one message for each 5 lines of source.  This meant
we would run lint once per month or whenever an unfindable bug 
appeared, not otherwise.

Al

Re: which language

[Rakesh Malhotra]

David Brown wrote:
> Eric Doenges wrote in message ...
>[big snip]
> I may be mixing this up (or even making it up), but I think the main written
> language used in India is called "Hindu", or perhaps "Hindi", whereas there
> is a great variety of spoken languages, of which "Urdu" is the most common.
> Maybe someone can give us an authoritative answer.  (Hindu is also the most
> common religion in India, but since historically written language has been
> the domain of priests and commerce, it is not surprising that the names are
> the same.)

Don't know what any of this has to do with Ada or realtime systems etc
:)  however I would like to try and provide some information on the
above.

Quite a while back I had read somewhere (either Guiness Book of World
Records or Encyclopedia Brittanica) that India has about 750
written/spoken languages and if we throw in languages which do not have
their own script then the number of languages is closer to 1000-1500.

Hindi is a language and is spoken very widely.  Hindu refers to a
religion which is the main religion in India - about 85% Indian's are
Hindu's.  Urdu is not a common language. Another common language is
English.  The language used in religious ceremonies etc is often
Sanskrit however it is not in common everyday use.

Re: which language

[Rakesh Malhotra]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
> With respect to the incoming class of Freshmen, there was a gentleman
> who used to frequent these channels who had exactly that sort of study.
> (For some reason, the name "McCabe" comes to mind, but I'm entering the
> springtime of my senility...) He had a class that involved programming a
> control system for a model railroad and the assignment was the same year
> after year. When he switched the language from C to Ada, the completion
> rate went way up and the error rate went way down. From a scientific
> standpoint, this is about as close to a controlled experiment you're
> going to get in the software world.

The gentleman was Prof. McCormick who teaches(taught?) at the State Uni
NY.  Students worked in teams to build control software for a model
railroad.  For the first 5 years he used C and no team ever completed
the project.  This, inspite of the instructor providing upto 60% of
pre-written code to the teams.

Then he changed the language to Ada.  The first year 50% of the teams
completed the project without any instructor support code (since he had
just switched languages he did not have any code to supply).  Later,
with support code 75% of the teams were finishing their projects.

I think he lists several reasons for the students not being able to
finish their C projects, including little checks by the compiler, a lot
of pointer usage - which C almost forces on you, lower level of
abstraction etc.       I think the article is available on adahome.com

Rakesh

Re: which language

[Tim]

In article <371600ca.5850192@192.168.2.34>, dhansen@btree.com says...
>
 
>>
>>For Ada compile time, of course, strict checking is always "on",
>>and personally I find that a tremendous morale boost for the
>>individual programmer.  Each defect found at compile time is
>>on that does not have to be found the hard way.
>>

>So why do so few C programmer bother to lint their code?
>

Becuase it is more fun to debug code yourself, spend hours making
printf() statment allover the code, untill one finds what is wrong
and then go to the code and fix it, and then fee sooooo good about
themselves that they found and fixed a bug?

Having the compiler or another tool like lint telling me where is
the bug, takes all the fun out of programming.

Tim
 

Re: which language

[Elizabeth D Rather]

Official standards:
ANSI X3.215.1994 and ISO/IEC 15145:1997  (Technical content is identical)

Stephen Pelc wrote in message <01be86fc$c8638b00$0200a8c0@stephen>...
>Stephen Leake <Stephen.Leake@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote in article
><u3e23xdor.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov>...
>> Is there a Forth standard? Does is support arbitrarily many
>> dictionaries?
>Yes, it's ANS Forth
>  Programming Languages - Forth, approved March 24, 1994
>
>Yes, it supports arbitrarily many dictionaries, but the maximum number may
>be defined by the implementation, with a minimum of eight. In practice,
>in most modern systems the number is restricted only by memory.
>
>According to the X3J14 membership list in the standard, Jim Rash
>from NASA/Goddard was on the committee.
>--
>Stephen Pelc, MicroProcessor Engineering - More real, less time
>133 Hill Lane, Shirley, Southampton SO15 5AF, England
>tel: +44 1703 631441, fax: +44 1703 339691, net: sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk
>web: http://www.mpeltd.demon.co.uk
>

Re: which language

[Chris Hills]

In article <3715ECC4.9CC67F42@pwfl.com>, Marin David Condic
<condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> writes
>Eric Doenges wrote:
>
>Point taken & I would agree. English owes far more to Latin & Greek than
>it does to, say, Persian or Chineese. Probably, though, English

There are a lot of slang words in use in English English that come from
Arabic and Chineese/Oriental languages. These were brought back by
the Army when we "Civilised" :-) them.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\  Chris Hills          Staffs /\/\/\/\/\/
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\     England      /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Re: which language

[Rufus V. Smith]

Scott A. Moore wrote in message <7f589q$7nd$1@news-sj-3.cisco.com>...
>In article <371600ca.5850192@192.168.2.34>
>

> ... I think
>the reason that deep error checking in C in general is annoying is
>because of the language. Since lots of stupid things can be
>syntactically correct, you are reduced to reading through warnings to
>see if there might be a real problem, for example:
>
>   while (i = 1) ...
>
>Might be stupid, but it is correct....

I'm too dim to see why that statement is stupid.  Could you
explain why it is stupid in short, easy words?   And type slow,
'cause I can't read too fast.

Re: which language

[Emil Rojas]

While I am very impressed by these remarks, I would be
more interested in comparison to C++.  Ada, even Ada83,
should be a much better langauge for expressing a simulation
than is C.  I'll have to wait to comment on C++ vs. Ada95.

Rakesh Malhotra wrote:

> Marin David Condic wrote:
> >
> > With respect to the incoming class of Freshmen, there was a gentleman
> > who used to frequent these channels who had exactly that sort of study.
> > (For some reason, the name "McCabe" comes to mind, but I'm entering the
> > springtime of my senility...) He had a class that involved programming a
> > control system for a model railroad and the assignment was the same year
> > after year. When he switched the language from C to Ada, the completion
> > rate went way up and the error rate went way down. From a scientific
> > standpoint, this is about as close to a controlled experiment you're
> > going to get in the software world.
>
> The gentleman was Prof. McCormick who teaches(taught?) at the State Uni
> NY.  Students worked in teams to build control software for a model
> railroad.  For the first 5 years he used C and no team ever completed
> the project.  This, inspite of the instructor providing upto 60% of
> pre-written code to the teams.
>
> Then he changed the language to Ada.  The first year 50% of the teams
> completed the project without any instructor support code (since he had
> just switched languages he did not have any code to supply).  Later,
> with support code 75% of the teams were finishing their projects.
>
> I think he lists several reasons for the students not being able to
> finish their C projects, including little checks by the compiler, a lot
> of pointer usage - which C almost forces on you, lower level of
> abstraction etc.       I think the article is available on adahome.com
>
> Rakesh

Re: which language

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <371600ca.5850192@192.168.2.34>, dhansen@btree.com (Dave Hansen) writes:
> On Thu, 15 Apr 1999 00:11:32 GMT, kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry
> Kilgallen) wrote:
> 
>>In article <01be86a7$24358420$0200a8c0@stephen>, "Stephen Pelc" <sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>
>>> How much of the benefit is from the compiler checking. I am regularly
>>> appalled at the amount of production C code that is generated with
>>> very loose checking. Turning on strict checking is a major win.
>>
>>For Ada compile time, of course, strict checking is always "on",
>>and personally I find that a tremendous morale boost for the
>>individual programmer.  Each defect found at compile time is
>>on that does not have to be found the hard way.
>>
> So why do so few C programmer bother to lint their code?

If that is the case, perhaps it is because they don't have the
psychological approach to programming as Ada fans.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: which language

[Geoffrey Waigh]

"Scott A. Moore" wrote:
> 
> In article <371600ca.5850192@192.168.2.34>
> dhansen@btree.com (Dave Hansen) wrote:
> 
> > So why do so few C programmer bother to lint their code?
> >
> > An unrepentant linter,

The problem is too many C programmers (and note I am primarily a
C programmer,) feel that warnings aren't serious so why cause the
system to generate them or try to fix them.  The first time I
had access to lint it took a week to scrub my source tree but it
found several bugs including an intermittent that had been lurking
for months.  Probably one of the most cost effective software
purchases that company made that year :-)

Nowadays when I have a choice I crank up the warnings both for real
problems and to enforce portability issues to be handled.  However
I (and a number of my friends,) have found that if you write proper
ANSI C with care given to typing, you can generate warning free code
without jumping through hoops.  Strangely enough the programs tend
not to have the mysterious bugs that some people claim C lends itself
to.

Of course another issue is programmers thinking they know better
than lint.  I've come across several people who were convinced
that their bogus constructs were legal because it worked once
for them.  More demanding architectures altered their outlook :-)

Geoffrey Waigh

Re: which language

[Robert Blum]

Scott A. Moore wrote in message <7f589q$7nd$1@news-sj-3.cisco.com>...
>   while (i = 1) ...
>
>Might be stupid, but it is correct. There are two solutions for this,
>both equally bad, IMHO. The first is to ignore the warnings that the
>program issues.

Obviously not a good idea....
>The second is to correct every warning.
>The first solution is a deasease of C; Tons of programs produce
>warnings on every compile, leading programmers to be complacent
>about seeing errors in the output. The second leads to massaging
>the code just to make the compiler happy.
No. The second leads to writing readable code. If a programmer is new on
your team and reads the above line, he has to check a lot of surrounding
code just to find out if you meant what you wrote.

Using expressions that exhibit side effects is lazy at best and dangerous in
most cases.

Programmers who write that kind of code usually do not avoid lint because it
issues (from their POV) unnecessary warnings; they avoid it because they
don't care about maintenance.

Of course, there's always the problem with legacy code..... But you can
switch of lint warnings just for that piece of code and add a comment
explaining what you're doing there.

Bye,
  Robert

Re: which language

[Al Christians]

Robert Blum wrote:
> 
> Scott A. Moore wrote in message <7f589q$7nd$1@news-sj-3.cisco.com>...
> >   while (i = 1) ...
> >
> >Might be stupid, but it is correct. There are two solutions for this,
> >both equally bad, IMHO. The first is to ignore the warnings that the
> >program issues.
> 
> Obviously not a good idea....
> >The second is to correct every warning.
> >The first solution is a deasease of C; Tons of programs produce
> >warnings on every compile, leading programmers to be complacent
> >about seeing errors in the output. The second leads to massaging
> >the code just to make the compiler happy.
> No. The second leads to writing readable code. If a programmer is new on
> your team and reads the above line, he has to check a lot of surrounding
> code just to find out if you meant what you wrote.
> 

If anyone tries to fix the Microsoft header files so that they give
a clean lint on my project, I'll become sick or violent. 

Al

(OFF-TOPIC) Re: which language

[Clayton Weaver]

(Which newsgroups to cut? This is nothing to do with computers.)

The way Western natural languages evolved is by co-opting (is that a
word?) the sound and images from hieroglyphics and cunieform langauges.

Presume, for example, that the word for boat in some ancient language
used by a technologically advanced race of a few thousand years ago is
"resting duck", just because that's what the local priest thought of
the first time he saw it being paddled on the river. So these boatsmen
go travelling, and they stop in at some village that has never seen a
boat before.

"What's that?"

"The resting duck."

And the boatsmen represent it by the symbols of a person reclining in a
hammock and duck in conjunction. After a few hundred or thousand years,
the symbols themselves, like cunieform, bear no appreciable resemblance to
a person in a hammock or a duck (abbreviations, of course, and abstraction
widens the labor market for apprentices that couldn't sketch an egg-shaped
egg if their life depended on it; all it takes is one high priest with
arthritis and a new order becomes sanctified).

So the first time the villagers see the written reprentation of "resting
duck", each word becomes an abstract symbol-sound pair. Since the
villagers don't know that "resting duck" refers separately to "resting"
and "duck", the syllables and their written symbols become completely
separated from their original etymology, and in a case like this example
probably merge into a single multi-syllable word as well.

The most significant original limits on the spread of Chinese hieroglyphic
script and language were probably the Himalayas and the Pacific Ocean, but
the relatively elaborate symbols compared to the more modular Western
alphabets may have been an impediment as well (else the Mongol Khan
administrations would have exported Chinese to India, Persia, Turkestan,
Russia, Ukraine, and the Caucuasus; tax collection in the 12th-13th
centuries in these areas was often administered by Chinese administrators,
yet the Chinese written language did not concurrently become the official
written languages of those areas).

That is testatament perhaps to the power of abstraction and modularity
in interface design.

Regards,

Clayton Weaver
<mailto:cgweav@eskimo.com>
(Seattle)

"Everbody's ignorant, just in different subjects."  Will Rogers



-- 

Clayton Weaver
<mailto:cgweav@eskimo.com>
(Seattle)

Re: which language

[Steve Rencontre]

On Wed, 14 Apr 1999 16:48:06 +0200, in
<7f29r0$41q$1@thelma.netpower.no> "David Brown"
<david@westcontrol.com> wrote:

>If I remember my history correctly, USA was dominated by the British (the
>English, in practice), and when they became independant (a good idea - as a
>Scot, I know what it means to live in a country dominated and abused by the
>English), USA then changed language to American English - making changes to
>the spelling for no other reason than to be different.  Quite petty, really,
>and (along with even sillier petty changes to the imperial measurement
>system) a real hassle for everyone with international considerations.

I think you'll find the spelling business is the other way round. /We/
(the English/British) changed spellings (which weren't very standard
at the time anyway) because of the perceived 'sophistication' of
French. Other changes are the natural result of divergence over
hundreds of years. There are many instances in which modern US English
is closer than modern British English to their common ancestor.

As for units, I think the American War of Independence came rather
before the establishment of ISO :-)
--
Steve Rencontre, Design Consultant
http://www.rsn-tech.demon.co.uk/  --  remember to despam return address

Re: which language

[Steve Rencontre]

On Wed, 14 Apr 1999 08:56:21 -0400, in <37149075.B7096E8F@pwfl.com>
Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> wrote:

>Steve Rencontre wrote:
>> 
>> On Wed, 07 Apr 1999 23:00:31 GMT, in <7ego2a$v1q$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
>> Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>> 
>> >Generally these days, serious use of Ada 95 is in the same
>> >ball park of cost as serious use of C++ on many systems.
>> 
>> Sorry, I didn't simply mean purchase price of compiler, etc. 'Cost'
>> includes the time and effort required to learn the language
>> /properly/. It includes the extra effort to keep current in multiple
>> fields if I don't want to commit fully to the Ada camp.
>> 
>So is every programmer born speaking C/C++? Or did someone have to train
>them? They were taught it in school? Lots of schools teach Ada in at
>least some of their classes.

This is a slight red herring. The argument is not about whether a
person should learn C/C++ or Ada, but whether a person who's familiar
with, productive in, and earning a living from one should make the
effort to learn the other.

>It seems to me that the cost of getting up to speed in Ada is a) no
>better/worse than it is to get up to speed using any language/toolset
>and b) so far down in the weeds of any but the smallest projects that it
>is not worth getting one's panties in a bunch over it. Sure, its a cost,
>but its just not that big and, given the fact that for almost any new
>project there is going to be a learning curve, the language education
>part of it is only one small part of many things to learn about.

Hmm...

Project Manager: We think the Bogotron project should be written in
Ada. We can retrain our C++ team in Ada; it'll delay the start about
six months and add half a million up front to the project cost, but we
think we'll get that back later.

Finance Director: Delay? Extra cost? Forget it! Next!
--
Steve Rencontre, Design Consultant
http://www.rsn-tech.demon.co.uk/  --  remember to despam return address

Re: which language

[Steve Rencontre]

On Wed, 14 Apr 1999 19:46:45 +0100, in
<01be86a7$24358420$0200a8c0@stephen> "Stephen Pelc"
<sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>How much of the benefit is from the compiler checking. I am regularly
>appalled at the amount of production C code that is generated with
>very loose checking. Turning on strict checking is a major win.

Good point.

I have been horrified by some of the so-called 'professional' code
I've had to work with. Modern C compilers (never mind C++) are capable
of producing a huge range of warnings about things which, while legal,
are non-portable or probably not what was meant.

I guess that if by "C", people really mean "K&R first edition C
without lint", I too would be one of the critics.
--
Steve Rencontre, Design Consultant
http://www.rsn-tech.demon.co.uk/  --  remember to despam return address

Re: which language

[Joseph P Vlietstra]

Al Christians wrote:

> Dave Hansen wrote:
> > So why do so few C programmer bother to lint their code?
> >
>
> The lint I used produced so many messages, mostly ignorable, that it
> was a major effort to get through all the messages for a project.
> Even when we had the code as good as we wanted it to be, and I'm
> reasonably intolerant of the bad things that C/C++ might allow,
> it was about one message for each 5 lines of source.  This meant
> we would run lint once per month or whenever an unfindable bug
> appeared, not otherwise.

Standard lint does generate extraneous/ignorable error messages.
That's why an industrial-strength lint (e.g., FlexeLint or PC Lint from
Gimpel Software) is worth every dime.
FlexeLint is tailorable via a configuration file which controls general
policy (warning levels) down to precise details (ignore a particular
error in a particular include file -- handy when working with Microsoft
products).  Also, FlexeLint is a little bit smarter about error
detection
than regular lint.  A message from FlexeLint usually means something
is wrong.

BTW: FlexeLint has significant value-added even if gcc -Wall compiles
clean.  FlexeLint is a stronger and can make comparisons between C/C++
source files.

Getting back to the subject.  Language selection depends on a lot of
factors (didn't someone publish a language selection spreadsheet a
while ago), including application area.  For my application area,
satellite
flight software, Ada wins hands down.  This is hard for me to say
because
I really hated programming in Ada-83 and loved programming in C.
The improvement Ada-95 has done a lot to change my opinion of the
language.

Re: which language

[Aidan Skinner]

On Thu, 15 Apr 1999 14:32:40 +0200, David Brown <david@westcontrol.com> wrote:

>I don't know why the French are so paranoid and possesive about their
>language.  Yes, it is important that countries keep their language - it is

[snippage]

>Norwegian, have no problems - why are the French government so paranoid?

The french have (historically) always been paranoid about their
language, it's just been institutionalised now.

- Aidan (who also does History)
-- 
http://www.skinner.demon.co.uk/
http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9704075s
"I could always suspend a few hundred accounts and watch what happens"

Re: which language

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <01be86a7$24358420$0200a8c0@stephen>, "Stephen Pelc" <sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> writes:

> How much of the benefit is from the compiler checking. I am regularly
> appalled at the amount of production C code that is generated with
> very loose checking. Turning on strict checking is a major win.

For Ada compile time, of course, strict checking is always "on",
and personally I find that a tremendous morale boost for the
individual programmer.  Each defect found at compile time is
on that does not have to be found the hard way.

My gut feel is that programmer morale helps code quality a lot,
as well as productivity.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: which language

[Iain McCracken]

> In article <u3e23xdor.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov>, Stephen.Leake@gsfc.nasa.gov says...
> >
> >Hmm, you're right, I forgot about multiple dictionaries. Actually, the
> >system I used limited you to 8 dictionaries, so it wasn't useful for
> >encapsulating small modules.
> >
> >Is there a Forth standard?
> 
>   FORTH-83 STANDARD
>   A Publication of the FORTH Standards Team
> 
>   August 1983
> 
>   Mountain View Press, Inc.
>   ISBN 0-914699-03-2

See also ANSI X3.215-1994
American National Standard for Information Systems
Programming Languages
Forth
March 24,1994.

> 
>   Elizabeth Rather could  give a much better answer to your questions.

--Iain.

Re: which language

[Eric Doenges]

Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> writes:

>Zero? Zenith? Azimuth? (lots of Arabic words - do those count?)

Ok, maybe I was a bit hasty there - but the original claim was that
English was preeminent because it absorbed everything interesting from
other languages. I do not think this is the case.
-- 
Eric Doenges
EMail:<Doenges@lpr.ei.tum.de>
"You don't have to swim faster than the shark, 
just faster than the guy next to you" - anonymous

Re: which language

[Eric Doenges]

"David Brown" <david@westcontrol.com> writes:

>As far as I can judge (as a native English speaker, it is difficult to be
>objective), I suspect that Spanish is easier to learn than English as it is
>far more consistent.  German grammer is significantly different from English
>grammer, but is it harder for someone with a completly unrelated mother
>tongue?  I think your comment is a rather sweeping generalisation, with no
>justification (not surprising really, since this is supposed to be a thread
>about computer languages :) ).

I plead guilty, your honor - I do tend to generalise. However, German
nouns have gender (male/female/neuter) which are not necessarily logical
and have to be memorized. As to what is easier to learn - we'ld probably
have to someone with an Asiatic mother tongue.

[ ... ]

>Large parts of the world are dominated by Spanish (and, to a lesser extent,
>Portuguese, Dutch and French) as a result of their colonies.

However, those parts of the world that have really mattered the last
half century or so (seen from a purly financial / scientific point of view) -
North America, Europe, Far East (Singapore, Korea, Japan, etc.) have been
dominated by English-speaking powers. (Note that while the relative
importance of different parts of the globe is rapidly changing, I don't
think the preeminence of the English language will change anytime
soon because people are usually reluctant to learn yet another language
(which brings us back on topic =8^)). As a result, English is the language
of international travel (both sea and air), as well as business and
science - and last but not least, the internet.

>Have you heard of the term "Indo-european languages" ?  Most European
>languages, including English, have the same origins as Indian-subcontentent
>languages such as Hindu.

I have, and I am aware of this fact. However, the original claim was that
English has absorbed everything interesting of other languages. In my
opinion, to "have a common root" and "to absorb" are two very different
things. Also, the vocabulary itself (which English borrows heavily from
other languages) is not the most interesting part of a language - how that
vocabulary is used (grammar) is. Unfortunately, I know no Urdu (I believe
Hindu is a religion, not a language), so I cannot compare it's grammar
with English grammar.
-- 
Eric Doenges
EMail:<Doenges@lpr.ei.tum.de>
"You don't have to swim faster than the shark, 
just faster than the guy next to you" - anonymous

Re: which language

[Steve]

Eric Doenges wrote:
> 
> I have, and I am aware of this fact. However, the original claim was that
> English has absorbed everything interesting of other languages. In my
> opinion, to "have a common root" and "to absorb" are two very different
> things. Also, the vocabulary itself (which English borrows heavily from
> other languages) is not the most interesting part of a language - how that
> vocabulary is used (grammar) is. Unfortunately, I know no Urdu (I believe
> Hindu is a religion, not a language), so I cannot compare it's grammar
> with English grammar.
> --
> Eric Doenges
> EMail:<Doenges@lpr.ei.tum.de>
------------------------------------------
English is a funny ole tongue. The thing that is often said about it by
linguists is that it has more ways to say shades of differing meaning
than other languages, and its sheer size, lexicographically, is enormous
compared to most other Indo-European, and even both Germanic and
Latin-based languages. The number of different words is staggering
compared to German and French. English seems to have benefitted from
being so often invaded and incorporating so many other regional tongues
into itself.

Now the case can be made that any language which had such a demand
placed upon it would have grown in precisely this way, and that may be
true.

It could also be asserted that it had some structural facility to being
extended, and it is that which made the people using it succeed at
science and technology, which have expanded it more than all other
forces.

I'm sure both are true and that these two directions of causation
interacted to generate what we now call English. English has changed
very very fast as a result.

English is said to have 250,000 words in regular usage and another
250,000 in technical use. This compared to French at 70,000 and German
at 120,000. Startling.

It may be true at some point that a language for the world will derive
from such an expanded language. English seems to be heading that way,
but it will undoubtedly change as much as it has since Chaucer to
fulfill that role. Will the result even still be English? Does it
matter? No.
-Steve
-- 
DON'T BUY the Pentium III !!! It's Hitler Inside!!!
Leave Intel to die with shit in their mouth and ashes in their eyes!!
The ONLY way they are going to learn is if YOU REFUSE TO BUY IT!!
--
-Steve Walz  rstevew@armory.com  ftp://ftp.armory.com:/pub/user/rstevew
-Electronics Site!! 1000 Files/50 Dirs!! http://www.armory.com/~rstevew
-Europe/Italy/Napoli http://ftp.unina.it/pub/electronics/ftp.armory.com

Re: which language

[Gisle S�lensminde]

In article <7f47ts$gvp$1@thelma.netpower.no>, David Brown wrote:

>I may be mixing this up (or even making it up), but I think the main written
>language used in India is called "Hindu", or perhaps "Hindi", whereas there
>is a great variety of spoken languages, of which "Urdu" is the most common.
>Maybe someone can give us an authoritative answer.  (Hindu is also the most
>common religion in India, but since historically written language has been
>the domain of priests and commerce, it is not surprising that the names are
>the same.)
>

I asked a friend of mine, coming from India. 

Hindi and Urdu is both spoken languages. Hindi is mostly spoken in
India, Urdu mostly in Pakistan, and are very similar. People speaking
Hindi and Urdu do understand each other (but there are differences).
Urdu is written with the Arabic alphabet, but Hindi is writen with the
Devanagari alphabet, which is the same as Sanskrit was written with.
(But Sanskrit is like Latin a dead language)

Hindu is the most common religion in India.

--
Gisle S�lensminde ( gisle@ii.uib.no )   

Re: which language

[Stephen Maudsley]

Steve <rstevew@armory.com> wrote in message
news:3715ADFA.6A76@armory.com...
> Eric Doenges wrote:
> >
> > I have, and I am aware of this fact. However, the original claim was
that
> > English has absorbed everything interesting of other languages. In
my
> > opinion, to "have a common root" and "to absorb" are two very
different
> > things. Also, the vocabulary itself (which English borrows heavily
from
> > other languages) is not the most interesting part of a language -
how that
> > vocabulary is used (grammar) is. Unfortunately, I know no Urdu (I
believe
> > Hindu is a religion, not a language), so I cannot compare it's
grammar
> > with English grammar.
> > --
> > Eric Doenges
> > EMail:<Doenges@lpr.ei.tum.de>
> ------------------------------------------
> English is a funny ole tongue. The thing that is often said about it
by
> linguists is that it has more ways to say shades of differing meaning
> than other languages, and its sheer size, lexicographically, is
enormous
> compared to most other Indo-European, and even both Germanic and
> Latin-based languages. The number of different words is staggering
> compared to German and French. English seems to have benefitted from
> being so often invaded and incorporating so many other regional
tongues
> into itself.
>
> Now the case can be made that any language which had such a demand
> placed upon it would have grown in precisely this way, and that may be
> true.
>
> It could also be asserted that it had some structural facility to
being
> extended, and it is that which made the people using it succeed at
> science and technology, which have expanded it more than all other
> forces.
>
> I'm sure both are true and that these two directions of causation
> interacted to generate what we now call English. English has changed
> very very fast as a result.
>
> English is said to have 250,000 words in regular usage and another
> 250,000 in technical use. This compared to French at 70,000 and German
> at 120,000. Startling.

The French government has a department for language standardisation like
many computer languages -  anyone have a view on how standardisation has
affected  the language?

ISTR that it is an offence (criminal?) to use a non-French word in
signage when there is an approved French word.

--
Stephen Maudsley mailto:Stephen.Maudsley@esgem.com
Esgem Limited: embedded system design http://www.esgem.com
Tel: +44-1453-521626 Mobile: +44-370-810991
Personal pages: http://www.esgem.com/people/Stephen.Maudsley

Re: which language

[Keith Wootten]

In article <7f4gfu$2ks$1@uranium.btinternet.com>, Stephen Maudsley
<Stephen.Maudsley@esgem.com> writes

[snipped]
>
>The French government has a department for language standardisation like
>many computer languages -  anyone have a view on how standardisation has
>affected  the language?
>

Why do the French use the word 'Logiciel' for a computer program, when
'program', or at least the quainter 'programme' is a French word?  This
is a genuine query, should any French be reading.

Why do some English people say 'francophone' instead of 'French
speaking'?  Does it convey any extra meaning, or is it simply an attempt
to jargonise what is a very simple concept?   Is 'jargonise' a word? 

Cheers
-- 
Keith Wootten

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Eric Doenges wrote:
> 
> Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> writes:
> 
> >Zero? Zenith? Azimuth? (lots of Arabic words - do those count?)
> 
> Ok, maybe I was a bit hasty there - but the original claim was that
> English was preeminent because it absorbed everything interesting from
> other languages. I do not think this is the case.

Point taken & I would agree. English owes far more to Latin & Greek than
it does to, say, Persian or Chineese. Probably, though, English
dominates more for economic reasons than anything else. If you want to
do business with the wealthiest of nations, English is the language in
which you are going to do that business.

Which, to bring things back on topic just a bit, would provide a
metaphor for why a given programming language may be more widespread
than another - economic considerations over technical merit.

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Re: which language

[Stephen Maudsley]

Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> wrote in message
news:3715ECC4.9CC67F42@pwfl.com...
> Eric Doenges wrote:
> >
> > Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> writes:
> >
> > >Zero? Zenith? Azimuth? (lots of Arabic words - do those count?)
> >
> > Ok, maybe I was a bit hasty there - but the original claim was that
> > English was preeminent because it absorbed everything interesting
from
> > other languages. I do not think this is the case.
>
> Point taken & I would agree. English owes far more to Latin & Greek
than
> it does to, say, Persian or Chineese. Probably, though, English
> dominates more for economic reasons than anything else. If you want to
> do business with the wealthiest of nations, English is the language in
> which you are going to do that business.

Yes but my daughter will be taking Spanish at school from September for
that very reason - Spanish supposedly becoming important for doing
business in many parts of the USA.

> Which, to bring things back on topic just a bit, would provide a
> metaphor for why a given programming language may be more widespread
> than another - economic considerations over technical merit


--
Stephen Maudsley mailto:Stephen.Maudsley@esgem.com
Esgem Limited: embedded system design http://www.esgem.com
Tel: +44-1453-521626 Mobile: +44-370-810991
Personal pages: http://www.esgem.com/people/Stephen.Maudsley

Re: which language

[Rufus V. Smith]

Marin David Condic wrote in message <3715ECC4.9CC67F42@pwfl.com>...
>Eric Doenges wrote:
>>
>> Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> writes:

<snips>
>> Ok, maybe I was a bit hasty there - but the original claim was that
>> English was preeminent because it absorbed everything interesting from
>> other languages. I do not think this is the case.
>
>Point taken & I would agree. English owes far more to Latin & Greek than
>it does to, say, Persian or Chineese. Probably, though, English
>dominates more for economic reasons than anything else. If you want to
>do business with the wealthiest of nations, English is the language in
>which you are going to do that business.
>

An associate of mine maintains that air travel has a lot to do for the
predominance of English as well.  Air traffic controllers had to have
a common language.  And the pilots, of course.

Re: which language

[Corey Minyard]

Emil Rojas <emil@lapel.com> writes:
> can get the over ambitious in trouble.  From the little I know,
> I suspect that the learning curve to using Ada95 is much bigger than that of
> learning C++ if you are currently a C programmer.
> 

My own experience is exactly the opposite.  Ada95 was much easier for
me than C++.  And this is after 10 years of programming exclusively in
C.


-- 
Corey Minyard                   Internet:  minyard@acm.org
  Work: minyard@nortelnetworks.com  UUCP:  minyard@wf-rch.cirr.com

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Emil Rojas wrote:
> 
> I have a couple of different responses to the notion there is evidence
> that one language is better than another for the same task based on
> the error rate.  First, my head kind of swims trying to imagine how
> one would come up with a test for this that was not biased.  Certainly
> no industry real world figures would be valid as they would be skewed
> by the real world processes of choosing Ada over another language
> or visa versa.  So then I imagine an incoming class of Freshman
> who are randomly divided  ... not I'm sure no one has done that
> experiment.
> 
There is never any simple quantitative way of analyzing defects in
software - I'll concede that. But with our engine controls, we've got
projects which are about as alike as you're going to see in the real
world and, from analyzing the defects I can say that they tend not to be
orders of magnitude different in quality or scale. You can argue all day
long about how it isn't as "scientific" as, say, analyzing tensile
strength between two different materials & concluding that one is
stronger. However, from having honestly looked at the data, I'll
conclude that Ada has genuinely reduced our error rate and hence our
costs.

With respect to the incoming class of Freshmen, there was a gentleman
who used to frequent these channels who had exactly that sort of study.
(For some reason, the name "McCabe" comes to mind, but I'm entering the
springtime of my senility...) He had a class that involved programming a
control system for a model railroad and the assignment was the same year
after year. When he switched the language from C to Ada, the completion
rate went way up and the error rate went way down. From a scientific
standpoint, this is about as close to a controlled experiment you're
going to get in the software world.


> I am also impressed that people feel that they have such strong evidence.
> I definitely see ways in which a language can help reduce errors, but
> I wonder how Ada contains those qualities in ways that C++ and Java
> do not.  Please note the exclusion of standard C.  If this guys is trying
> to sell the notion that Ada is better than C or assembly, well that's fine
> but that argument was won so long ago that I had forgotten it.
> 
> And or yes, what is that old saw about statistics?
> 
Its always hard to say "Language X is 'better' than language Y" because
the question always comes up, "Better for what?". My knowledge of C++
and Java is rather limited, so I don't want to start making claims I
can't support. (Although I hear that C++ still suffers from lots of the
same syntax traps that C has and which Ada avoids by strong typing,
range checks, etc... Or am I talking out of my a**?) Yes, there are
languages which offer lots of the same benefits as Ada. Maybe not all of
them bundled together in the same package though, so if you need *all*
the benefits, you want to choose Ada. To some extent it is true that "Of
all the languages in the world, Ada is one of them", so it isn't magical
or a cure-all. But it does have features which make it desirable for
large, long lived projects where reliability and maintainability are a
significant concern. It may not be the only way to get there, but it is
certainly one of the better ways.

> >
> > Ada pays off on systems of significant size and significant life span.
> > It makes a profit for the stockholders and reduces exposure to
> > liability. People don't have to like that or believe that or act on
> > that, but it is an observable fact.
> >
> 
> If this is the case than you don't need to tell us, just invest all of your
> time and money in Ada.

Gee, don't you want me to share my trade secrets so that your company's
stock can do as well as mine? ;-)

> 
> BTW, I have been impressed enough with the passion of the Ada95 folks
> on this thread that I intend to pick up a book on Ada95 the next time I
> am in a technical book store.  I checked out Ada95 books on Amazon.com
> but none of you guys had written reviews, so I decided to wait until I
> could leaf through the pages.
> 
Boy, I hope I don't come off as sounding "passionate" about a computer
language :-) I'd rather reserve that "passion" for circumstances that
call for "emotion" rather than logic. I guess if there is any "passion"
that comes across from the Adaphiles it is because we have learned to
use a language which has many technical merits and found it to be
helpful, yet we seem to have to constantly justify our existence or
disabuse people of misconceptions. Ada works effectively in the fields
in which we apply it. It isn't hard to learn. It isn't grossly
inefficient. It wasn't "designed by committee". etc. Maybe all we'd
appreciate from the rest of the world is that the language be given a
"fair shake", be given an objective, dispassionate, trial and judged on
its relative merits. (Maybe we all hate to see things we've invested
time & energy in criticized unfairly?)

As for a bibliography, you probably want to look at:
http://www.adahome.com/ This is a good source for lots of Ada related
information

> NTL,  I would be more interested in how you feel Ada helps you
> solve problems that other later generation languages do not, than
> hearing about dubious studies undoubtedly conducted by folks that
> have already chosen sides.
> 

Gee, I'd like to think my ten year's worth of metrics data were a little
more than a "dubious study by someone who has already chosen sides" :-)

As to how Ada solves problems for me, that could easily be the subject
of a book! We know from looking at a study done by Lucent concerning
errors in their large software systems that a large volume of their
commonly detected software errors are things that cannot/do not show up
in our engine controls or support tools developed in Ada. We know that
the tasking model has been very helpful in designing software that runs
on bare machines with hard realtime constraints (Cycle time at the 1.024
mSec level with no overruns allowed - just so we all know what I mean
when I say "hard realtime") We know that the syntax of the language is
easier to read/understand/maintain than other languages we have used. We
know that things like packages, generics and related features have
helped us to develop large chunks of reusable code that would be
difficult to do in other languages whithout such features. We rather
like the ability to specify things about machine specifics
(representations for data structures, control of size, layout, etc.) and
do so while isolating machine/compiler dependencies. The list goes on.

Again, I'd not like to be perceived as claiming that some or all of
these features are not available in other languages, but I think that
the full set of features available in Ada is rather unique to Ada. You
may find similar advantages if you take the time to learn the language
and understand the features available to you.

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Re: which language

[Dave Hansen]

On Thu, 15 Apr 1999 02:14:34 -0700, Steve <rstevew@armory.com> wrote:

[...]
>English is said to have 250,000 words in regular usage and another
>250,000 in technical use. This compared to French at 70,000 and German
>at 120,000. Startling.

Not only that, but the variety of meanings some of those words can
take is also staggering.  Consider the word "just."  Or "base."

This thread reminds me of an old joke:  Someone who can speak three
languages is tri-lingual, and someone who can speak two is bi-lingual,
but someone who can speak only one is -- American!

A proud American,

                          -=Dave
Just my (10-010) cents
I can barely speak for myself, so I certainly can't speak for B-Tree.
Change is inevitable.  Progress is not.

Re: which language

[Dave Hansen]

On Thu, 15 Apr 1999 00:11:32 GMT, kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry
Kilgallen) wrote:

>In article <01be86a7$24358420$0200a8c0@stephen>, "Stephen Pelc" <sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
>> How much of the benefit is from the compiler checking. I am regularly
>> appalled at the amount of production C code that is generated with
>> very loose checking. Turning on strict checking is a major win.
>
>For Ada compile time, of course, strict checking is always "on",
>and personally I find that a tremendous morale boost for the
>individual programmer.  Each defect found at compile time is
>on that does not have to be found the hard way.
>
So why do so few C programmer bother to lint their code?

An unrepentant linter,

                          -=Dave
Just my (10-010) cents
I can barely speak for myself, so I certainly can't speak for B-Tree.
Change is inevitable.  Progress is not.

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Stephen Pelc wrote:
> 
> Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> wrote in article
> <3714929D.DB3F3869@pwfl.com>...
> > Sorry. There is quantitative evidence that code from one language is
> > more reliable than that from another. I've got metrics here that have
> > been collected over a 10 year span which demonstrate that a control
> > programmed in Ada has fewer errors *by a factor of four* when compared
> > to a similar control in another language. And that's just my local data.
> > There are other studies which are publically available which demonstrate
> > both fewer errors and increased productivity.
> Please refer me to this information - URL?
> 
I really should develop a "URL kit" for this sort of question! I've seen
the studies on the net and then file the URLs away and forget them.
Here's a good place to start:

http://www.adahome.com/


> I'm glad to hear that such information exists. How is it related to level
> of abstraction? Does a programmer have a higher level of abstraction in
> your Ada metrics, and so produce code that has one quarter of the number
> of lines of code? If that is so, the benefit of Ada is only from the
> level of abstraction. And I'm not denying the benefit of that.
> 
Level of abstraction is a big factor. We've got very old things
programmed in assembler (and some new things where this was the only
practical choice) as well as some things programmed in C, "Hamscal" (a
Pascal variant) and a smattering of other stuff. Ada provides a good
deal more abstraction as well as encapsulation, information hiding, etc.

Comparing SLOCs is a real dangerous business. What I can say is this:
When looking at two controls where we have a similar number of A/D's
F/D's, discretes, etc. and the engines themselves provide similar
parameters to be monitored and controled, we see fewer defects in the
Ada code. If anything, the Ada code is *larger* by virtue of the fact
that it was developed later for a computer with more memory and an
engine that is more sophisticated. The control is expected to do more
things, so by most criteria, the Ada code has fewer errors for more
functionality. Make sense?


> How much of the benefit is from the compiler checking. I am regularly
> appalled at the amount of production C code that is generated with
> very loose checking. Turning on strict checking is a major win.
> --
An *enourmous* benefit is to be had by compile-time checks and in
particular with the "interface" checks made between units. This catches
errors before they have the chance to get into the software build. By
the time you get the image built and hand it off to the lab, you've
caught most of the inconsistencies that normally might have snuck
through in a different language.

Run-time checks are also very helpful although we usually have to turn
this stuff off for efficiency concerns. We hope to spend some time
looking at speed issues and developing a set of guidelines for when to
run with checks enabled - we're just not there yet with some of our
existing systems. Certainly, the support tools all run with checks
enabled.

In general, we attribute a great deal of importance to the compiler
checks in terms of reducing errors.

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> I really should develop a "URL kit" for this sort of question! I've seen
> the studies on the net and then file the URLs away and forget them.
> Here's a good place to start:
> 
> http://www.adahome.com/
> 

Bonehead! You forgot to mention:

http://www.adaic.org/


MDC

Re: which language

[BSCrawford]

Marin writes:

>With respect to the incoming class of Freshmen, there was a gentleman
>who used to frequent these channels who had exactly that sort of study.
>(For some reason, the name "McCabe" comes to mind, but I'm entering the
>springtime of my senility...) He had a class that involved programming a
>control system for a model railroad and the assignment was the same year
>after year. When he switched the language from C to Ada, the completion
>rate went way up and the error rate went way down. From a scientific
>standpoint, this is about as close to a controlled experiment you're
>going to get in the software world. 

That was Prof. John McCormick. BTW, John will give a keynote speech 
at SIGAda 99 next October in Redondo Beach, CA.  I believe he plans 
to review that experience as part of his talk. 

Bard Crawford
Stage Harbor Software

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Paul E. Bennett wrote:
> > Ada pays off on systems of significant size and significant life span.
> > It makes a profit for the stockholders and reduces exposure to
> > liability. People don't have to like that or believe that or act on
> > that, but it is an observable fact.
> 
> So, is there a published article available with this data, or are you
> planning to do one.
> 
Aside from the standard excuse of "I don't have the time", I also have
the excuse that "The Legal Department Won't Let Me!". :-)

Pratt gets pretty touchy about allowing corporate data out in any public
forums. Since it is infinitely easier and safer to say "No", that is
generally the answer you get if you bother to ask first rather than
count on getting forgiveness later.

I should publish something on this, I know. Sorry, I don't simply have
anything I can hand off to you in a finished form at this juncture.

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Re: which language

[Rufus V. Smith]

Dave Hansen wrote in message <371600ca.5850192@192.168.2.34>...
>On Thu, 15 Apr 1999 00:11:32 GMT, kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry
>Kilgallen) wrote:
>
>>In article <01be86a7$24358420$0200a8c0@stephen>, "Stephen Pelc"
<sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>
>>> How much of the benefit is from the compiler checking. I am regularly
>>> appalled at the amount of production C code that is generated with
>>> very loose checking. Turning on strict checking is a major win.
>>
>>For Ada compile time, of course, strict checking is always "on",
>>and personally I find that a tremendous morale boost for the
>>individual programmer.  Each defect found at compile time is
>>on that does not have to be found the hard way.
>>
>So why do so few C programmer bother to lint their code?
>

They REALLY DIG their source code debuggers.

Re: which language

[Stanley R. Allen]

David Brown wrote:
> 
> It is quite possible that Latin got the words "hospes" and "hostis" from old
> Indo-European languages via Hebrew - after all, Hebrew is an Indo-European
> language itself and is older than Latin.
> 

Hebrew is most definitely *not* Indo-European.  It is Hamito-Semitic, like
Aramaic, Arabic, and Egyptian.

-- 
Stanley Allen
mailto:srallen@hti.com

Re: which language

[Larry Kilgallen]

 Emil Rojas wrote:
> 
> 
> BTW, I have been impressed enough with the passion of the Ada95 folks
> on this thread that I intend to pick up a book on Ada95 the next time I
> am in a technical book store.  I checked out Ada95 books on Amazon.com
> but none of you guys had written reviews, so I decided to wait until I
> could leaf through the pages.

There is a considerable benefit to looking at a book in hand.
I have bought a lot of Ada books, and of those I don't care
for I generally undrstand how they would appeal to a different
reader.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: which language

[David Brown]

I don't remember where I got the information about "host" - it was not from
any dictionary I currently have, so I can't quote any references.

It is quite possible that Latin got the words "hospes" and "hostis" from old
Indo-European languages via Hebrew - after all, Hebrew is an Indo-European
language itself and is older than Latin.

If "ghos-ti-" can mean "stranger", it is not so surprising that words for
"guest" and "enemy" are both derived from it.

Isn't this more fun than assembly programming?

David Brown


Dave Hansen wrote in message <3714e45e.20128022@192.168.2.34>...
>Off topic, but I had to look it up...
>
>On Wed, 14 Apr 1999 16:52:26 +0200, "David Brown"
><david@westcontrol.com> wrote:
>[...]
>>An interesting imported word is "host", from which words such as "hostile"
>>and "hospital" are derived.  "Host" comes from Hebrew, and the two
>>apparently contradictory meanings come from an old Hebrew saying that your
>>safest place is in the house of your enemy.
>
>Close, but my dictionary traces the etymology of "host" to the Latin
>hospes, meaning guest, host, or stranger, while "hostile" comes from
>the Latin hostis, meaning enemy.  They both comes from the
>Indo-European form ghos-ti-, which is also an ancestor of the Russian
>gospodin.
>
>Bet you wanted to know all _that_.  ;-)  Regards,
>
>
>                          -=Dave
>Just my (10-010) cents
>I can barely speak for myself, so I certainly can't speak for B-Tree.
>Change is inevitable.  Progress is not.

Re: which language

[David Brown]

Eric Doenges wrote in message ...
>"David Brown" <david@westcontrol.com> writes:
>
>>As far as I can judge (as a native English speaker, it is difficult to be
>>objective), I suspect that Spanish is easier to learn than English as it
is
>>far more consistent.  German grammer is significantly different from
English
>>grammer, but is it harder for someone with a completly unrelated mother
>>tongue?  I think your comment is a rather sweeping generalisation, with no
>>justification (not surprising really, since this is supposed to be a
thread
>>about computer languages :) ).
>
>I plead guilty, your honor - I do tend to generalise. However, German
>nouns have gender (male/female/neuter) which are not necessarily logical
>and have to be memorized. As to what is easier to learn - we'ld probably
>have to someone with an Asiatic mother tongue.


I moved to Norway around 5 years ago, and have had to cope with noun
genders.  I still get them wrong regularly.

>
>[ ... ]
>
>>Large parts of the world are dominated by Spanish (and, to a lesser
extent,
>>Portuguese, Dutch and French) as a result of their colonies.
>
>However, those parts of the world that have really mattered the last
>half century or so (seen from a purly financial / scientific point of
view) -
>North America, Europe, Far East (Singapore, Korea, Japan, etc.) have been
>dominated by English-speaking powers. (Note that while the relative
>importance of different parts of the globe is rapidly changing, I don't
>think the preeminence of the English language will change anytime
>soon because people are usually reluctant to learn yet another language
>(which brings us back on topic =8^)). As a result, English is the language
>of international travel (both sea and air), as well as business and
>science - and last but not least, the internet.


I wonder why this is?  In earlier times, the Chinese were far more
technically advanced than the Europeans.  Was it the invention of the
printing press that made the difference?  The simplicity of the Latin
alphabet makes printing (and later typewriters, computer keyboards, and so
on) far easier in European languages than in languages with more symbols in
their alphabets.

>
>>Have you heard of the term "Indo-european languages" ?  Most European
>>languages, including English, have the same origins as
Indian-subcontentent
>>languages such as Hindu.
>
>I have, and I am aware of this fact. However, the original claim was that
>English has absorbed everything interesting of other languages. In my
>opinion, to "have a common root" and "to absorb" are two very different
>things. Also, the vocabulary itself (which English borrows heavily from
>other languages) is not the most interesting part of a language - how that
>vocabulary is used (grammar) is. Unfortunately, I know no Urdu (I believe
>Hindu is a religion, not a language), so I cannot compare it's grammar
>with English grammar.


I may be mixing this up (or even making it up), but I think the main written
language used in India is called "Hindu", or perhaps "Hindi", whereas there
is a great variety of spoken languages, of which "Urdu" is the most common.
Maybe someone can give us an authoritative answer.  (Hindu is also the most
common religion in India, but since historically written language has been
the domain of priests and commerce, it is not surprising that the names are
the same.)



>--
>Eric Doenges
>EMail:<Doenges@lpr.ei.tum.de>
>"You don't have to swim faster than the shark,
>just faster than the guy next to you" - anonymous

Re: which language

[David Brown]

Stephen Maudsley wrote in message <7f4gfu$2ks$1@uranium.btinternet.com>...
>The French government has a department for language standardisation like
>many computer languages -  anyone have a view on how standardisation has
>affected  the language?
>
>ISTR that it is an offence (criminal?) to use a non-French word in
>signage when there is an approved French word.
>


I heard somewhere that it is even an offence to make spelling mistakes in
official French publications.

I don't know how the French goverment's idea of standardisation affect the
language, but it cripples their international trade in science and
technology.  When a new technological word is invented somewhere (generally
as some mixture of Greek and/or Latin, like the word "technology" itself),
it is generally added directly into English.  Other languages, such as
Norwegian, adopt the word after small spelling changes (changing "ch" to
"k", and "x" to "ks", and similar).  In French, you can't use the term in
official written French until someone has thought up a French-sounding word
to replace it.  The result is a lot of hassle when French and non-French
speakers need to communicate about technical matters.

I don't know why the French are so paranoid and possesive about their
language.  Yes, it is important that countries keep their language - it is
vital to the countries' culture and heritage, and the world would be a
boring place indeed if we all used the same language.  But other countries
do not seem to have any problems preserving their language for normal use
while adopting foreign words as convenient.  Even small languages, like
Norwegian, have no problems - why are the French government so paranoid?

David Brown

Re: which language

[David Brown]

Stanley R. Allen wrote in message <371620E8.692E5B39@hso.link.com>...
>David Brown wrote:
>>
>> It is quite possible that Latin got the words "hospes" and "hostis" from
old
>> Indo-European languages via Hebrew - after all, Hebrew is an
Indo-European
>> language itself and is older than Latin.
>>
>
>Hebrew is most definitely *not* Indo-European.  It is Hamito-Semitic, like
>Aramaic, Arabic, and Egyptian.
>
>--
>Stanley Allen
>mailto:srallen@hti.com

Yes, someone has already pointed this out to me - sorry for my mixup.  Are
there any Hebrew speakers out there who can tell me if my theories are
completly wrong or just mostly wrong?

Re: which language

[David Brown]

I have just looked this up the my OED - maybe not the most complete
etymological dictionary, but it has some information and they tend to be
quite accurate.

Hindi and its varients are the most common spoken languages in India, Urdu
is the most common language in Pakistan.  A Hindu is a follower of the
religion (and social system) Hinduism.

The words "Hindi", "Hindu" and "Hinduism" (and "India") come from an Urdu
term for "the people on the other side of the river".  The name "Urdu" comes
from the Hindi for "language of the camp".

Hindu is written using Sanskritt writting forms and alphabet, but is not
actually strongly related to Sanskritt.  Sanskritt itself is basically dead
as a spoken language, but may be, as Rakesh Malhotra says, used in religious
ceremonies (the OED does not go into this sort of detail).

Urdu has roots in both Hindi and Persian, and is written using the Persian
script.

Hopefully I remembered all this correctly - I do not have my OED with me in
the office.

David Brown.


Rakesh Malhotra wrote in message <37163738.3BD2EFDB@pop.safetran.com>...
>David Brown wrote:
>> Eric Doenges wrote in message ...
>>[big snip]
>> I may be mixing this up (or even making it up), but I think the main
written
>> language used in India is called "Hindu", or perhaps "Hindi", whereas
there
>> is a great variety of spoken languages, of which "Urdu" is the most
common.
>> Maybe someone can give us an authoritative answer.  (Hindu is also the
most
>> common religion in India, but since historically written language has
been
>> the domain of priests and commerce, it is not surprising that the names
are
>> the same.)
>
>Don't know what any of this has to do with Ada or realtime systems etc
>:)  however I would like to try and provide some information on the
>above.
>
>Quite a while back I had read somewhere (either Guiness Book of World
>Records or Encyclopedia Brittanica) that India has about 750
>written/spoken languages and if we throw in languages which do not have
>their own script then the number of languages is closer to 1000-1500.
>
>Hindi is a language and is spoken very widely.  Hindu refers to a
>religion which is the main religion in India - about 85% Indian's are
>Hindu's.  Urdu is not a common language. Another common language is
>English.  The language used in religious ceremonies etc is often
>Sanskrit however it is not in common everyday use.

Re: which language

[David Brown]

Rufus V. Smith wrote in message <7f5jd3$6jm$1@nnrp03.primenet.com>...
>
>Scott A. Moore wrote in message <7f589q$7nd$1@news-sj-3.cisco.com>...
>>In article <371600ca.5850192@192.168.2.34>
>>
>
>> ... I think
>>the reason that deep error checking in C in general is annoying is
>>because of the language. Since lots of stupid things can be
>>syntactically correct, you are reduced to reading through warnings to
>>see if there might be a real problem, for example:
>>
>>   while (i = 1) ...
>>
>>Might be stupid, but it is correct....
>
>I'm too dim to see why that statement is stupid.  Could you
>explain why it is stupid in short, easy words?   And type slow,
>'cause I can't read too fast.
>
>


The statement
    while (i = 1) ...
will set i to 1, then execute ... continually (unless you have a "break"
statement).

The statement
    while (i == 1) ...
is more likely to be correct.

Infinite loops are useful, especially as the main loop of an embedded
program, but loops with exit conditions are ever so slightly more useful.

Do you have a poor choice of font for your newsreader and can't distinguish
between = and == ?

Re: which language

[Larry Kilgallen]

Reply-To: Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam
Organization: LJK Software
Lines: 16

In article <37167A0F.E3228A71@easystreet.com>, Al Christians <achrist@easystreet.com> writes:

> If anyone tries to fix the Microsoft header files so that they give
> a clean lint on my project, I'll become sick or violent. 

What if Microsoft did it ?

Have you C fans become too accepting of whatever you get handed ?

In that environment, I think we can see the answer to the original
question about the essential difference between add-on Lint for C
and strong compile-time requirements designed into the Ada language.
Vendors releasing Ada bindings to an operating system (or library)
cannot take short cuts to bypass language safety features.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: which language

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <371ab5c4.169206125@localhost>, Steve@XXX_REMOVE_XXXrsn-tech.demon.co.uk (Steve Rencontre) writes:

> Project Manager: We think the Bogotron project should be written in
> Ada. We can retrain our C++ team in Ada; it'll delay the start about
> six months and add half a million up front to the project cost, but we
> think we'll get that back later.

If you have experienced software engineers and it will take them six
months to learn Ada, you should fire the lot of them, regardless of
what language you continue with.  Or perhaps you should fire the training
company who gave you that estimate.

I do believe your project will need at least one individual with much
better Ada knowledge than the rest, to ensure nothing gets missed in
code reviews, etc.  Stopping the whole project for six months to learn
Ada is ridiculous.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Steve Rencontre wrote:
> Hmm...
> 
> Project Manager: We think the Bogotron project should be written in
> Ada. We can retrain our C++ team in Ada; it'll delay the start about
> six months and add half a million up front to the project cost, but we
> think we'll get that back later.
> 
> Finance Director: Delay? Extra cost? Forget it! Next!

If retraining your C++ team enough to get them started working in Ada
will take you six months in project delay and a half million in up front
costs, then you must be doing something wrong. I've got projects here
that were started up in all sorts of squirley languages where nobody
knew anything about it and there was no way it took anything like six
months to learn enough about the language to do software development.
(Unless your shop works on the theory of: "Hurry up and start making
code while I find out what the customer wants..." :-)

Granted, to become an *expert* in some language will take considerably
more time, but the development of some project doesn't require "language
experts". What it requires is "software development experts" - people
who can figure out what a system needs to do, develop a design that will
accomplish the goals and then translate that design into some
programming language. I'll give you that being an expert in a language
may suggest more elegant designs which better utilize language features,
but let's remember the fundamental rule of all engineering: "'Good
enough' is not nearly so wonderful a thing as 'Perfect' but it's good
enough!"

Who says expertise won't be developed as the project continues? And,
BTW: this argument is language independent. At one point there was no
C++ (and no Java, and no C, and no Fortran, etc...) so someone had to
start a "first project" in a new language, and I'll bet if the players
involved *wanted* to use the new language they wouldn't pull the "six
months and a half a million" story out. This story only gets brought up
by people who are really saying "I don't want to do X so let me give you
flawed reasoning with which you can reject X and not make me do it."

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Re: which language

[Wojciech Fraczak]

jon@axtell.obvious.demon.co.uk (Jon Axtell) writes:

> In article <7f5mhl$reh$1@thelma.netpower.no>, on Thu, 15 Apr 1999
> 23:12:45 +0200, "David Brown" <david@westcontrol.com> wrote:
>  
> >
> >Rufus V. Smith wrote in message <7f5jd3$6jm$1@nnrp03.primenet.com>...
...

> >    while (i = 1) ...
> >will set i to 1, then execute ... continually (unless you have a "break"
> >statement).
> >
> >The statement
> >    while (i == 1) ...
> >is more likely to be correct.
> 
> i = 1;
> while (i) ...
> 
> is functionally equivalent to "while (i = 1)..." but does not take any
                  ^^^^^^^^^^
It's not true. Eg. compare `i=1;while(i) i=0;' and `while(i=1) i=0;'

> more code (with any reasonable optmising compiler), contrary to what
> the source code might seem to indicate. The two seperate lines are
> also a hell of a lot more readable and understandable by a human
> programmer, as opposed to a cyborg with a built in C compiler! :-)
> 
> Jon
> -- 
> jon@axtell.obvious.demon.co.uk
> Remove the obvious bit

-- 
Wojciech Fraczak

Re: which language

[Kenneth A. McIsaac]

Jon Axtell wrote:
> 
> 
> i = 1;
> while (i) ...
> 
> is functionally equivalent to "while (i = 1)..." but does not take any
> more code (with any reasonable optmising compiler), contrary to what
> the source code might seem to indicate. The two seperate lines are
> also a hell of a lot more readable and understandable by a human
> programmer, as opposed to a cyborg with a built in C compiler! :-)

Actually, I don't think those two lines are functionally equivalent.  I
could be mistaken, but the translation for while(i=1) is something like:

for(;;)
{
   i=1;
   ...
}

(or if you prefer)
for(i=1;true;i=1){...}

since the assignment of 1 to i happens every time through the loop.

However, I heartily agree that doing two things on one line is usually
good only for impressing one's friends with one's mastery of syntax, and
rarely has any valid arguments behind it.

Re: which language

[Robert Blum]

Al Christians wrote in message <37167A0F.E3228A71@easystreet.com>...
[snip]
>
>If anyone tries to fix the Microsoft header files so that they give
>a clean lint on my project, I'll become sick or violent.

I didn't want to mention them :-)
In fact, I'd be lucky if MS would fix them at least insofar that they don't
generate any compiler warnings...............

Bye,
  Robert

Re: which language

[Pete Drazenski]

Marin David Condic wrote:

> (Cycle time at the 1.024
> mSec level with no overruns allowed - just so we all know what I mean
> when I say "hard realtime")

Why such a small cycle time ?. I would expect that it is difficult to determine
whether your system (rocket engine control ?) is even schedulable until the final

build is available. In addition module size is somewhat limited by this. Doen't
this
hamstring Ada code generation and put a great deal of resource to timing analysis
?.
Also I would suspect encapsulation and abstarctions are somewhat bounded by the
1.024 ms cycle time..
Have you ever considered using fixed priority scheduling (rate monotonic) and
widening
cycle time ?

Pete

Re: which language

[mike]

In article <1999Apr16.084810.1@eisner>, kilgallen@eisner.decus.org says...
>
>In article <371ab5c4.169206125@localhost>,
>Steve@XXX_REMOVE_XXXrsn-tech.demon.co.uk (Steve Rencontre) writes:
>

>> Project Manager: We think the Bogotron project should be written in
>> Ada. We can retrain our C++ team in Ada; it'll delay the start about
>> six months and add half a million up front to the project cost, but we
>> think we'll get that back later.
>

>If you have experienced software engineers and it will take them six
>months to learn Ada, you should fire the lot of them, regardless of
>what language you continue with. 

Exactly!

The first time I started to use Ada at work, this is how it happened:

On friday afternoon, I was at the work library, saw an Ada book, started
flipping pages, I liked how the code looked, I took it back to my
office, I spend the whole weekend, learning it, writing small programs,
etc..

One week after that, I was writing all my new programs in Ada.

of course, that was a defense contractor I was working for, and they were
open to me doing that in Ada. so I did not have to hide away while I was
playing with Ada at work.

One week. that is all it took. of course I was not an expert after one week,
but I was writing fully working programs using the basic common features
of the language.

Mike.

 

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Pete Drazenski wrote:
> 
> Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
> > (Cycle time at the 1.024
> > mSec level with no overruns allowed - just so we all know what I mean
> > when I say "hard realtime")
> 
> Why such a small cycle time ?. I would expect that it is difficult to determine
> whether your system (rocket engine control ?) is even schedulable until the final
> 
> build is available. In addition module size is somewhat limited by this. Doen't
> this
> hamstring Ada code generation and put a great deal of resource to timing analysis
> ?.
> Also I would suspect encapsulation and abstarctions are somewhat bounded by the
> 1.024 ms cycle time..
> Have you ever considered using fixed priority scheduling (rate monotonic) and
> widening
> cycle time ?
> 
> Pete

Sorry, I'll clarify: At 1.024 mSec we are talking about a "heartbeat"
interrupt provided by some custom hardware. At every heartbeat, we
generally are reading a set of A/D's, F/D's, Discretes and writing
D/A's, etc., according to a schedule. (Not all possible inputs read in
every cycle.) Typically there is other work done at this level which is
very low level device control, etc. Every Nth heartbeat, (depending on
what control we're talking about - it varies.) you trigger one or more
tasks to initiate work done at N, N*2, N*4, etc. mSec. Software that,
for example, might need to run at 5mSec intervals is scheduled by a task
initiated every 5th heartbeat. (Loop closure is typically done this
fast) In our more primitive systems, the software itself is simply
executed from the 1mSec code with manual load balancing - a big case
statement that decides which modules to call in a given heartbeat. (Yes,
I know that's "A Bad Thing", but you often have to live with stuff that
was designed a very long time ago when this was the way things were
done. Besides, once you get it right, there's no point in changing it
just to make it look pretty!)

I hope that clarifies for you...


MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Re: which language

[bill]

In article <37173AB4.FA69501@pwfl.com>, Marin says...
>
 
>(Unless your shop works on the theory of: "Hurry up and start making
>code while I find out what the customer wants..." :-)
>

This is so funny.

I had this same thing happen to me, and it came from my Boss.

My boss wanted me to start coding right away, before I was done with
any documentation on what I am supposed to do. I told him, it is better 
that I complete at least the functional document, so I am clear 
on *WHAT* I need the program to do, he told me that we are allready 
late and I need to start coding right away ! This was an order.

Of course I did not. but I told him I was coding hard to make the moron 
happy, but I kept talking to the users more to find exactly what they 
needed the program to do, and update the functional document (which I had
to do at night so he would not see me working on it), and then I worked 
on the design more, before I touched the keyboard to code anything.

Sometimes you end up working under such an idiot for a manger, (his
manager was even more of an idiot than my manager to have hired him) and 
you have to learn how to work around them. 

Bill
 

Re: which language

[P.S. Norby]

Rakesh Malhotra wrote:
> 
> Marin David Condic wrote:
> >
> > With respect to the incoming class of Freshmen, there was a gentleman
> > who used to frequent these channels who had exactly that sort of study.
> > (For some reason, the name "McCabe" comes to mind, but I'm entering the
> > springtime of my senility...) He had a class that involved programming a
> > control system for a model railroad and the assignment was the same year
> > after year. When he switched the language from C to Ada, the completion
> > rate went way up and the error rate went way down. From a scientific
> > standpoint, this is about as close to a controlled experiment you're
> > going to get in the software world.
> 
> The gentleman was Prof. McCormick who teaches(taught?) at the State Uni
> NY.  

Prof. McCormick is now at U. Northern Iowa:
http://www.cns.uni.edu/~mccormic


> Students worked in teams to build control software for a model
> railroad.  For the first 5 years he used C and no team ever completed
> the project.  This, inspite of the instructor providing upto 60% of
> pre-written code to the teams.
> 
> Then he changed the language to Ada.  The first year 50% of the teams
> completed the project without any instructor support code (since he had
> just switched languages he did not have any code to supply).  Later,
> with support code 75% of the teams were finishing their projects.
> 
> I think he lists several reasons for the students not being able to
> finish their C projects, including little checks by the compiler, a lot
> of pointer usage - which C almost forces on you, lower level of
> abstraction etc.       I think the article is available on adahome.com
> 
> Rakesh

-- 
P.S.N.

 "Software engineers are, in many ways, similar to normal people"

        --  Scott Adams

"No excuses.  No embarrassment.  No apologies...
 Ada -- the most trusted and powerful programming language
 on earth, or in space." -- S. Tucker Taft
 
\\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\    \\\ 
( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)   ( :)
///    ///    ///    ///    ///    ///    ///    ///    /// 
(Speaking only for myself)

Re: which language

[Rufus V. Smith]

You're right, that IS stupid.  And it shows how much I use C.   How
embarrassing.

(Anybody know how to remove a dumb post?)

(
David Brown wrote in message <7f5mhl$reh$1@thelma.netpower.no>...
>
>Rufus V. Smith wrote in message <7f5jd3$6jm$1@nnrp03.primenet.com>...
>>
>>Scott A. Moore wrote in message <7f589q$7nd$1@news-sj-3.cisco.com>...
>>>In article <371600ca.5850192@192.168.2.34>
>>>
>>
>>> ... I think
>>>the reason that deep error checking in C in general is annoying is
>>>because of the language. Since lots of stupid things can be
>>>syntactically correct, you are reduced to reading through warnings to
>>>see if there might be a real problem, for example:
>>>
>>>   while (i = 1) ...
>>>
>>>Might be stupid, but it is correct....
>>
>>I'm too dim to see why that statement is stupid.  Could you
>>explain why it is stupid in short, easy words?   And type slow,
>>'cause I can't read too fast.
>>
>>
>
>
>The statement
>    while (i = 1) ...
>will set i to 1, then execute ... continually (unless you have a "break"
>statement).
>
>The statement
>    while (i == 1) ...
>is more likely to be correct.
>
>Infinite loops are useful, especially as the main loop of an embedded
>program, but loops with exit conditions are ever so slightly more useful.
>
>Do you have a poor choice of font for your newsreader and can't distinguish
>between = and == ?
>
>

Re: which language

[Rufus V. Smith]

Here I go with an another attempt to be stupid..

Jon Axtell wrote in message <37181ad9.11745831@news.theplanet.net>...
>In article <7f5mhl$reh$1@thelma.netpower.no>, on Thu, 15 Apr 1999
>23:12:45 +0200, "David Brown" <david@westcontrol.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>Rufus V. Smith wrote in message <7f5jd3$6jm$1@nnrp03.primenet.com>...
>>>
>>>Scott A. Moore wrote in message <7f589q$7nd$1@news-sj-3.cisco.com>...
>>>>In article <371600ca.5850192@192.168.2.34>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> ... I think
>>>>the reason that deep error checking in C in general is annoying is
>>>>because of the language. Since lots of stupid things can be
>>>>syntactically correct, you are reduced to reading through warnings to
>>>>see if there might be a real problem, for example:
>>>>
>>>>   while (i = 1) ...
>>>>
>>>>Might be stupid, but it is correct....
>>>

<snipped my first embarrassment>
>
>It is a correct statement but when writing C code that is easily
>maintainable and easy to read (by humans, compilers have no problem)
>it is stupid. This is because it does two things in one statement.
>This might look like it is good for efficieny, but it is actually
>counter-productive. Any statement/function that does two seperate
>things is a good starting point for finding bugs in my experience.
>
>>The statement
>>    while (i = 1) ...
>>will set i to 1, then execute ... continually (unless you have a "break"
>>statement).
>>
>>The statement
>>    while (i == 1) ...
>>is more likely to be correct.
>
>i = 1;
>while (i) ...
>
>is functionally equivalent to "while (i = 1)..." but does not take any
>more code (with any reasonable optmising compiler), contrary to what
>the source code might seem to indicate. The two seperate lines are
>also a hell of a lot more readable and understandable by a human
>programmer, as opposed to a cyborg with a built in C compiler! :-)
>



so the sequence:
.
.
i=1;
while (i) ...
.
.
is equivalent to:
.
.
while (i=1) ...
.
.
Is that to say it (the second) doesn't re-evaluate the statement (i=1) on
each iteration?
So you're also saying the statement:

while (i=1)

   printf("%d ",i);
   i=2;
  printf("%d ",i);
 }

results in
1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2......
and not
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1
?


I thought

while (something)

was equivalent to

for (;something;)

or will that do what you describe if you try

for (; i=1 ;)

Re: which language

[Rufus V. Smith]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 425 bytes --]


Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen wrote in message <7f6uko$onc2@ftp.kvaerner.com>...
>
>When I explain to others which "age" programmers are I claim we are still
in
>the middle ages. We believe too much and measure too little, if at all
(yes, me
>too).
>
>Remember Brian Kernighans advice on optimization (don't remember his exact
>words): Don't belive, measure!
>
Or:

One accurate measurement is worth 1000 expert opinions.

Re: which language

[Pete Drazenski]

Marin David Condic wrote:

> . Besides, once you get it right, there's no point in changing it
> just to make it look pretty!)
>
> I hope that clarifies for you...
>

Thanks for the clarification. I couldn't agree more with your statement above.
I haven't found any customer willing to fund "cosmetic" changes to a working &
proven legacy system. Now , obsolecence issues , that's a different story !!

Pete

Re: which language

[Stephen Maudsley]

Pete Drazenski <drazenski@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:37174927.278C7242@nospam.com...
>
>
> Marin David Condic wrote:
>
> > (Cycle time at the 1.024
> > mSec level with no overruns allowed - just so we all know what I
mean
> > when I say "hard realtime")
>
> Why such a small cycle time ?. I would expect that it is difficult to
determine
> whether your system (rocket engine control ?) is even schedulable
until the final
>
> build is available. In addition module size is somewhat limited by
this. Doen't
> this
> hamstring Ada code generation and put a great deal of resource to
timing analysis
> ?.
> Also I would suspect encapsulation and abstarctions are somewhat
bounded by the
> 1.024 ms cycle time..
> Have you ever considered using fixed priority scheduling (rate
monotonic) and
> widening
> cycle time ?

The answer to the question used to be "'cos that's what the physics
says" when I last worked in this area. Do we have the same definition of
cycle time? I'm assuming that Marin's definition refers to the control
loop bandwidth that he has. If that's the case then monotonic rate
schedulers help out in ensuring the loop requirements are satisfied but
don't help you increase them. Or have I missed something?

--
Stephen Maudsley mailto:Stephen.Maudsley@esgem.com
Esgem Limited: embedded system design http://www.esgem.com
Tel: +44-1453-521626 Mobile: +44-370-810991
Personal pages: http://www.esgem.com/people/Stephen.Maudsley

Re: which language

[Vincent]

Keith Wootten wrote:

> Why do the French use the word 'Logiciel' for a computer program, when
> 'program', or at least the quainter 'programme' is a French word?  This
> is a genuine query, should any French be reading.

 Despite being French, I have no authoritative answer.
I would say that  ``programme'' emphasizes on the implementation.
``Programme''  is indeed used, particularly when you are actually
programming.

``Logiciel'' may be more used when you use it (or when you sell it !).

I would say ``Je fais un programme'' but not ``Je fais un logiciel'' when I
program.

Another point :
I do not think that a series of Forth definition would be called a
``programme'',
but it can be called a ``logiciel'' in the sense it is performing one task
on a computer.

``programme'' may be conveying some notion of sequentiality,
with its original meaning close to a list of tasks.

> Why do some English people say 'francophone' instead of 'French
> speaking'?  Does it convey any extra meaning, or is it simply an attempt

> to jargonise what is a very simple concept?   Is 'jargonise' a word?

Only an idea (just my opinion) : you can imagine a French speaking computer,

but you will hardly call it francophone.

(Sorry for the negative definition.)

In the end, we just expect that a language allows us to use metaphore and
metonymie.
With these two mechanism, it can break the limitations of vocabulary.

Best regards,
Vincent

--
``English is 50% of French words... and 50% of onomatopee''
anonymous

Re: which language

[Eric Doenges]

"David Brown" <david@westcontrol.com> writes:

>I wonder why this is?  In earlier times, the Chinese were far more
>technically advanced than the Europeans.  Was it the invention of the
>printing press that made the difference?  The simplicity of the Latin
>alphabet makes printing (and later typewriters, computer keyboards, and so
>on) far easier in European languages than in languages with more symbols in
>their alphabets.

While I would guess that the simpler Latin alphabet played a part, I think
the main reason is that the Chinese became set in their ways and a bit
arrogant in their regard of the rest of the world - i.e. "our's is the
only way and everybody else is just a barbarian". Note that this attitude
seems to become prevalent in every great civilization, which then becomes
decadent and goes into decline, while younger, more hungry civilizations
come up to take their place. I would argue that Western Civilization, with
it's current emphasis on short-term profit/pleasure/everything is
currently heading down the same path.
-- 
Eric Doenges
EMail:<Doenges@lpr.ei.tum.de>
"You don't have to swim faster than the shark, 
just faster than the guy next to you" - anonymous

Re: which language

[Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen]

Dave Hansen wrote :
>So why do so few C programmer bother to lint their code?
>
>An unrepentant linter,


Because programming is still a matter of belief. Everybody seem to belive that
their code is so good they don't need extra tools. Or that only sissys lint
their code or have coding standards. In addition tools like lint and purify
costs money; suddenly things starts to become expensive (costs begin to climb
towards Ada levels).

When I explain to others which "age" programmers are I claim we are still in
the middle ages. We believe too much and measure too little, if at all (yes, me
too).

Remember Brian Kernighans advice on optimization (don't remember his exact
words): Don't belive, measure!

The spirit of that advice should be used on the programming process as well. I
believe that once one starts to measure the cost of software development
properly (I don't mean life cycle costs, just the cost to get product
shipping), the savings in cost and manpower will force programmers away from
languages like C/C++ and to languages like Ada/Delphi/Eiffel . Even Cobol might
look good compared to C/C++.


Greetings,






Greetings,

Re: which language

[Jon Axtell]

In article <7f5mhl$reh$1@thelma.netpower.no>, on Thu, 15 Apr 1999
23:12:45 +0200, "David Brown" <david@westcontrol.com> wrote:
 
>
>Rufus V. Smith wrote in message <7f5jd3$6jm$1@nnrp03.primenet.com>...
>>
>>Scott A. Moore wrote in message <7f589q$7nd$1@news-sj-3.cisco.com>...
>>>In article <371600ca.5850192@192.168.2.34>
>>>
>>
>>> ... I think
>>>the reason that deep error checking in C in general is annoying is
>>>because of the language. Since lots of stupid things can be
>>>syntactically correct, you are reduced to reading through warnings to
>>>see if there might be a real problem, for example:
>>>
>>>   while (i = 1) ...
>>>
>>>Might be stupid, but it is correct....
>>
>>I'm too dim to see why that statement is stupid.  Could you
>>explain why it is stupid in short, easy words?   And type slow,
>>'cause I can't read too fast.

It is a correct statement but when writing C code that is easily
maintainable and easy to read (by humans, compilers have no problem)
it is stupid. This is because it does two things in one statement.
This might look like it is good for efficieny, but it is actually
counter-productive. Any statement/function that does two seperate
things is a good starting point for finding bugs in my experience.

>The statement
>    while (i = 1) ...
>will set i to 1, then execute ... continually (unless you have a "break"
>statement).
>
>The statement
>    while (i == 1) ...
>is more likely to be correct.

i = 1;
while (i) ...

is functionally equivalent to "while (i = 1)..." but does not take any
more code (with any reasonable optmising compiler), contrary to what
the source code might seem to indicate. The two seperate lines are
also a hell of a lot more readable and understandable by a human
programmer, as opposed to a cyborg with a built in C compiler! :-)

Jon
-- 
jon@axtell.obvious.demon.co.uk
Remove the obvious bit

Re: which language

[Yves Bossu]

Keith Wootten wrote:
> 
> In article <7f4gfu$2ks$1@uranium.btinternet.com>, Stephen Maudsley
> <Stephen.Maudsley@esgem.com> writes
> 
> [snipped]
> >
> >The French government has a department for language standardisation like
> >many computer languages -  anyone have a view on how standardisation has
> >affected  the language?
> >
> 
> Why do the French use the word 'Logiciel' for a computer program, when
> 'program', or at least the quainter 'programme' is a French word?  This
> is a genuine query, should any French be reading.

"Logiciel" does not mean "program", but "software", as opposite to
"mat�riel" == "hardware". Ir is more general : a "logiciel"/software can
be a library or a bunch of programs.

More procise : there are "logiciel specifique", for custom-made
software, and "progiciel", for packaged software products, like Unix,
MS-Office or SAP.


-- 
Yves Bossu
  Consultant
  Fi System - Soci�t� de Services Internet Intranet
  mailto:ybossu@fisystem.fr
  http://www.fisystem.fr     http://www.embeddedjava.net

Re: which language

[Yves Bossu]

David Brown wrote:
> 
> Stephen Maudsley wrote in message <7f4gfu$2ks$1@uranium.btinternet.com>...
> >The French government has a department for language standardisation like
> >many computer languages -  anyone have a view on how standardisation has
> >affected  the language?
> >
> >ISTR that it is an offence (criminal?) to use a non-French word in
> >signage when there is an approved French word.
> >
> 

> I heard somewhere that it is even an offence to make spelling mistakes in
> official French publications.

It is not a criminal offense, but simple politness : if a french word
exists for a concept, why use a foreign one ? For example, why should I
say "software", instead of "logiciel", which means exactly the same
thing ? Why should I say "driver" instead of its french translation
"pilote" ?
I spend a lot of time bashing my fellow frenchmen who clutter their
french text whith english word instead of using the french equivalent. 
Either you speak and write fully in english, either you speak and write
fully in french.

It is forbidden to sell a product in France if its manual is not
translated in french. But it is only a law, and in France, voting a law
does not imply that it will be applied. ;-)

> I don't know why the French are so paranoid and possesive about their
> language.  Yes, it is important that countries keep their language - it is
> vital to the countries' culture and heritage, and the world would be a
> boring place indeed if we all used the same language.  But other countries
> do not seem to have any problems preserving their language for normal use
> while adopting foreign words as convenient.  Even small languages, like
> Norwegian, have no problems - why are the French government so paranoid?
> 

1) a lot of new word appeared in french are made from english ones.
2) In french, it is difficult to create new words by aggregation, like
in english or german. We must use tricks.
3) France is one of the sole country in the world that officially
struggles against the hollywod-MacDo-Coca-Disney cultural uniformisation
of the world. The aim is clear : when a country dominates culturally the
world, is dominates it economically.
4) France is nostalgic of the times when it was a superpower.
5) France is a county where the government minds every business. Every
frenchman complaints that "the government weight is too great, taxes are
too high", and, at the same time, demands everythings from the state :
"why does not the government fix my problem".
The reason : historically, France is a nation that defines itself by its
Government (and not by its folk, as Germany). Without the Government,
France would not have existed. And the french language is an element of
the nation's unity.
 

-- 
Yves Bossu
  Consultant / consultant
  Fi System - Soci�t� de Services Internet Intranet / Internet Intranet
software house
  mailto:ybossu@fisystem.fr
  http://www.fisystem.fr     http://www.embeddedjava.net

Re: which language

[David Brown]

>
>i = 1;
>while (i) ...
>
>is functionally equivalent to "while (i = 1)..." but does not take any
>more code (with any reasonable optmising compiler), contrary to what
>the source code might seem to indicate. The two seperate lines are
>also a hell of a lot more readable and understandable by a human
>programmer, as opposed to a cyborg with a built in C compiler! :-)
>
>Jon
>--
>jon@axtell.obvious.demon.co.uk
>Remove the obvious bit


Actually, many compilers will produce better code with less convoluted
source.  Sometimes this is appropriate, other times a sufficiently
intelligent optomiser should generate the same code for each combination.
For example, the code segments

    int i, j;
    i = j = 1;

and

    int i, j;
    i = 1; j = 1;

are sematically identical (assuming j is not volatile).  However, the
generated code on a simple accumulator-based MPU may be something like:

    /* i = j = 1; */
    ld j, #1
    ld A, j
    ld i, A

as compared to

    /* i = 1; j = 1; */
    ld i, #1
    ld j, #1


Consider also the following code segment:

    int i, *p;
    /* ... initialisation of p */
    i = *p = 1;

This means *p = 1; i = *p; which can *not* be optomised to *p = 1; i = 1;
because there is always the chance that p points to itself and is therefore
modified by *p = 1.


These are just simple examples.  There are plenty of cases where writing
code that does several things in one statement can result in sub-optimal
code from compilers, or is highly implementation dependant.  There is also
the unfortunate fact that many compilers for small 8-bit MPUs have bugs
which manifest themselves when faced with more convoluted code.

David Brown

Re: which language

[Mike Harrison]

In article <3717326A.18A0689B@fisystem.fr>, Yves Bossu
<ybossu@fisystem.fr> writes
>David Brown wrote:
>> 
>> Stephen Maudsley wrote in message <7f4gfu$2ks$1@uranium.btinternet.com>...
>> >The French government has a department for language standardisation like
>> >many computer languages -  anyone have a view on how standardisation has
>> >affected  the language?
>> >
>> >ISTR that it is an offence (criminal?) to use a non-French word in
>> >signage when there is an approved French word.
>> >
>> 
>
>> I heard somewhere that it is even an offence to make spelling mistakes in
>> official French publications.
>
>It is not a criminal offense, but simple politness : if a french word
>exists for a concept, why use a foreign one ? For example, why should I
>say "software", instead of "logiciel", which means exactly the same
>thing ? Why should I say "driver" instead of its french translation
>"pilote" ?
>I spend a lot of time bashing my fellow frenchmen who clutter their
>french text whith english word instead of using the french equivalent. 
>Either you speak and write fully in english, either you speak and write
>fully in french.
>
>It is forbidden to sell a product in France if its manual is not
>translated in french. But it is only a law, and in France, voting a law
>does not imply that it will be applied. ;-)
>
>> I don't know why the French are so paranoid and possesive about their
>> language.  Yes, it is important that countries keep their language - it is
>> vital to the countries' culture and heritage, and the world would be a
>> boring place indeed if we all used the same language.  But other countries
>> do not seem to have any problems preserving their language for normal use
>> while adopting foreign words as convenient.  Even small languages, like
>> Norwegian, have no problems - why are the French government so paranoid?
>> 
>
>1) a lot of new word appeared in french are made from english ones.
>2) In french, it is difficult to create new words by aggregation, like
>in english or german. We must use tricks.
>3) France is one of the sole country in the world that officially
>struggles against the hollywod-MacDo-Coca-Disney cultural uniformisation
>of the world. The aim is clear : when a country dominates culturally the
>world, is dominates it economically.
>4) France is nostalgic of the times when it was a superpower.
>5) France is a county where the government minds every business. Every
>frenchman complaints that "the government weight is too great, taxes are
>too high", and, at the same time, demands everythings from the state :
>"why does not the government fix my problem".
>The reason : historically, France is a nation that defines itself by its
>Government (and not by its folk, as Germany). Without the Government,
>France would not have existed. And the french language is an element of
>the nation's unity.
> 
>

English does tend to adopt whole phrases directly from other languages;
I remember some years ago when supporting a s/w product from the French
sister company of the (Dutch) company I worked for, that I had to
generate a contract document (in English). The French people sent me a
draft translation of their standard (French) contract, which I attempted
to turn into normal(?) 'Contract English'.
I had no trouble with most of it, but one clause was total gibberish - I
got them to send a copy of their contract in French. The problem came
from their attempt to translate 'force majeure' into English!

------------------------------------------------------------------
  (mapcar 'standard_disclaimers (my_opinions))

  Change 'devil' to 'demon' for my real email address.

    Mike H.

Re: which language

[Nick Roberts]

Keith Wootten wrote in message ...

|Is 'jargonise' a word?

Yes, but it is always spelt "jargonize".

Re: which language

[Bob Collins]

In article <7f47ts$gvp$1@thelma.netpower.no>, "David Brown"
<david@westcontrol.com> wrote:

> I wonder why this is?  In earlier times, the Chinese were far more
> technically advanced than the Europeans.  Was it the invention of the
> printing press that made the difference?  The simplicity of the Latin
> alphabet makes printing (and later typewriters, computer keyboards, and so
> on) far easier in European languages than in languages with more symbols in
> their alphabets.

The Chinese invented the printing press. Specifically,
Bi Sheng in the 1040s. (See Denis Twitchett, _Printing
and Publishing in Medieval China_ (London, 1983) and
Thomas F. Carter, _The Invention of Printing in China
and its Spread Westward_, 2nd ed., revised by L.
Carrington Goodrich (New York, 1955).)

Gutenberg did his thing in the 1450s.

-- 
Bob Collins  <mailto:collins@cs.wm.edu>  <http://ratbert.cs.wm.edu>

Re: which language

[Hans Dermot Doran]

Actually it wasn't moving type, it was automated printing that gave Europe
the edge.

The Chinese used woodcuts to print their pages, and woodcutters were as fast
as the best type setters, however it was the increased speed with which an
automated press could produce books which allowed them to become cheaper and
thus more accessable and increased the variety of books published.

Hans

David Brown wrote in message <7f9lhi$j29$1@thelma.netpower.no>...
>I am learning more in this thread than from anything else in
>comp.arch.embedded :)
>
>What about moveable type?  That made printing and publishing far faster,
>easier and cheaper in Europe.  Presumably the earliest printing presses
>required some sort of mould to be hand crafted for each page?
>
>David Brown
>
>
>Bob Collins wrote in message ...
>>In article <7f47ts$gvp$1@thelma.netpower.no>, "David Brown"
>><david@westcontrol.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I wonder why this is?  In earlier times, the Chinese were far more
>>> technically advanced than the Europeans.  Was it the invention of the
>>> printing press that made the difference?  The simplicity of the Latin
>>> alphabet makes printing (and later typewriters, computer keyboards, and
>so
>>> on) far easier in European languages than in languages with more symbols
>in
>>> their alphabets.
>>
>>The Chinese invented the printing press. Specifically,
>>Bi Sheng in the 1040s. (See Denis Twitchett, _Printing
>>and Publishing in Medieval China_ (London, 1983) and
>>Thomas F. Carter, _The Invention of Printing in China
>>and its Spread Westward_, 2nd ed., revised by L.
>>Carrington Goodrich (New York, 1955).)
>>
>>Gutenberg did his thing in the 1450s.
>>
>>--
>>Bob Collins  <mailto:collins@cs.wm.edu>  <http://ratbert.cs.wm.edu>
>
>

Re: which language

[David Brown]

I am learning more in this thread than from anything else in
comp.arch.embedded :)

What about moveable type?  That made printing and publishing far faster,
easier and cheaper in Europe.  Presumably the earliest printing presses
required some sort of mould to be hand crafted for each page?

David Brown


Bob Collins wrote in message ...
>In article <7f47ts$gvp$1@thelma.netpower.no>, "David Brown"
><david@westcontrol.com> wrote:
>
>> I wonder why this is?  In earlier times, the Chinese were far more
>> technically advanced than the Europeans.  Was it the invention of the
>> printing press that made the difference?  The simplicity of the Latin
>> alphabet makes printing (and later typewriters, computer keyboards, and
so
>> on) far easier in European languages than in languages with more symbols
in
>> their alphabets.
>
>The Chinese invented the printing press. Specifically,
>Bi Sheng in the 1040s. (See Denis Twitchett, _Printing
>and Publishing in Medieval China_ (London, 1983) and
>Thomas F. Carter, _The Invention of Printing in China
>and its Spread Westward_, 2nd ed., revised by L.
>Carrington Goodrich (New York, 1955).)
>
>Gutenberg did his thing in the 1450s.
>
>--
>Bob Collins  <mailto:collins@cs.wm.edu>  <http://ratbert.cs.wm.edu>

(Off-Topic) Re: which language

[Bob Jacobs]

The Chinese printing press is, always has been, and always will be
completely off-topic in comp.lang.c++.

Please take your discussion elsewhere.

Regards,

--
Bob Jacobs

It is the mark of an instructed mind to rest satisfied with the degree of
precision which the nature of a subject admits, and not to seek exactness
when only an approximation of the truth is possible ...
---------------  Aristotle (330 B.C.) -------------


Bob Collins wrote in message ...
>In article <7f47ts$gvp$1@thelma.netpower.no>, "David Brown"
><david@westcontrol.com> wrote:
>
>> I wonder why this is?  In earlier times, the Chinese were far more
>> technically advanced than the Europeans.  Was it the invention of the
>> printing press that made the difference?  The simplicity of the Latin
>> alphabet makes printing (and later typewriters, computer keyboards, and
so
>> on) far easier in European languages than in languages with more symbols
in
>> their alphabets.
>
>The Chinese invented the printing press. Specifically,
>Bi Sheng in the 1040s. (See Denis Twitchett, _Printing
>and Publishing in Medieval China_ (London, 1983) and
>Thomas F. Carter, _The Invention of Printing in China
>and its Spread Westward_, 2nd ed., revised by L.
>Carrington Goodrich (New York, 1955).)
>
>Gutenberg did his thing in the 1450s.
>
>--
>Bob Collins  <mailto:collins@cs.wm.edu>  <http://ratbert.cs.wm.edu>
>

Re: which language

[Didier H. Besset]

>why are the French government so paranoid?
>
>David Brown
>

The peculiarity of France is that it is one of few countries where the
intellectuals have a serious impact on politics (I mean a real impact, not
mere inspiration!).

Didier

Re: which language

[Tom Maier]

Mike Harrison <mph@zdenka.demon.co.uk> wrote:


>English does tend to adopt whole phrases directly from other languages;
>I remember some years ago when supporting a s/w product from the French
>sister company of the (Dutch) company I worked for, that I had to
>generate a contract document (in English). The French people sent me a
>draft translation of their standard (French) contract, which I attempted
>to turn into normal(?) 'Contract English'.
>I had no trouble with most of it, but one clause was total gibberish - I
>got them to send a copy of their contract in French. The problem came
>from their attempt to translate 'force majeure' into English!

We had a similar problem when a customer ordered a machine
and wanted it all in German.  There was a three position switch
on the front and one of the positions was called "Jog", which
means jerk forward very quickly.  The translator couldn't find
a short word for it and came up with something that was a couple
words that totaled about 20 characters, so this switch had 
about five labels squeezed into that one switch position that
had all those letters on it coming down the front of the control 
panel.  It was hell trying to get it to fit.

By the way, what does 'force majeure' mean?

Tom

Re: which language

[Mike Harrison]

In article <37190f56.3145508@news.mindspring.com>, Tom Maier
<sminstruments@mindspring.com> writes
>Mike Harrison <mph@zdenka.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>English does tend to adopt whole phrases directly from other languages;
>>I remember some years ago when supporting a s/w product from the French
>>sister company of the (Dutch) company I worked for, that I had to
>>generate a contract document (in English). The French people sent me a
>>draft translation of their standard (French) contract, which I attempted
>>to turn into normal(?) 'Contract English'.
>>I had no trouble with most of it, but one clause was total gibberish - I
>>got them to send a copy of their contract in French. The problem came
>>from their attempt to translate 'force majeure' into English!
>
>We had a similar problem when a customer ordered a machine
>and wanted it all in German.  There was a three position switch
>on the front and one of the positions was called "Jog", which
>means jerk forward very quickly.  The translator couldn't find
>a short word for it and came up with something that was a couple
>words that totaled about 20 characters, so this switch had 
>about five labels squeezed into that one switch position that
>had all those letters on it coming down the front of the control 
>panel.  It was hell trying to get it to fit.
>
>By the way, what does 'force majeure' mean?
>
>Tom
>
Chambers Concise 20th Century Dictionary:

force majure (Fr) superior power: unavoidable accident, act of God
(legal).

------------------------------------------------------------------
  (mapcar 'standard_disclaimers (my_opinions))

  Change 'devil' to 'demon' for my real email address.

    Mike H.

Re: which language

[Chris Hills]

In article <48kLvAAK5RG3EwhZ@zdenka.demon.co.uk>, Mike
Harrison <mph@zdenka.demon.co.uk> writes
>>
>>By the way, what does 'force majeure' mean?
>>
>>Tom
>>
>Chambers Concise 20th Century Dictionary:
>
>force majure (Fr) superior power: unavoidable accident, act of God
>(legal).

So what is an "Act of God (illegal)" :-)

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\  Chris Hills          Staffs /\/\/\/\/\/
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\     England      /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Re: which language

[Markus Kuhn]

sminstruments@mindspring.com (Tom Maier) writes:
|> We had a similar problem when a customer ordered a machine
|> and wanted it all in German.  There was a three position switch
|> on the front and one of the positions was called "Jog", which
|> means jerk forward very quickly.  The translator couldn't find
|> a short word for it and came up with something that was a couple
|> words that totaled about 20 characters, so this switch had 
|> about five labels squeezed into that one switch position that
|> had all those letters on it coming down the front of the control 
|> panel.  It was hell trying to get it to fit.

This exactly is the reason, why experienced designers today use the
ISO 7000 and IEC 417 pictograms wherever possible to label equipment
functions, and not English words. This saves you a lot of translation
costs and related legal hassles.

http://w3.hike.te.chiba-u.ac.jp/iec417/ver2.0/html/index.html
http://www1.shore.net/~eurocnsl/symbol2.htm

Markus

-- 
Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK
Email: mkuhn at acm.org,  WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>

Re: which language

[Steve Rencontre]

On 16 Apr 1999 09:07:02 -0700, in <7f7n76$o57@drn.newsguy.com> mike@
wrote:

>>If you have experienced software engineers and it will take them six
>>months to learn Ada, you should fire the lot of them, regardless of
>>what language you continue with. 
>
>Exactly!
>
>The first time I started to use Ada at work, this is how it happened:
>
>On friday afternoon, I was at the work library, saw an Ada book, started
>flipping pages, I liked how the code looked, I took it back to my
>office, I spend the whole weekend, learning it, writing small programs,
>etc..
>
>One week after that, I was writing all my new programs in Ada.
> [...]
>One week. that is all it took. of course I was not an expert after one week,
>but I was writing fully working programs using the basic common features
>of the language.

But were you producing better, more reliable code, more quickly than
you would have done in your previously preferred language?

I have never disputed that any decent programmer can pick up a new
language in a few days, but that's not the point. Are you really
suggesting that merely adopting a new language will, in and of itself,
bring about quantifiable major improvements in quality?

Perhaps you are. Perhaps you're right. I'm still sceptical, though.

--
Steve Rencontre, Design Consultant
http://www.rsn-tech.demon.co.uk/  --  remember to despam return address

Re: which language

[Steve Rencontre]

On Thu, 15 Apr 1999 22:37:32 GMT, in <37166A71.DEAF9BCA@home.com>
Geoffrey Waigh <anzu@home.com> wrote:

>Nowadays when I have a choice I crank up the warnings both for real
>problems and to enforce portability issues to be handled.  However
>I (and a number of my friends,) have found that if you write proper
>ANSI C with care given to typing, you can generate warning free code
>without jumping through hoops.  Strangely enough the programs tend
>not to have the mysterious bugs that some people claim C lends itself
>to.

Yep, with you 100%.
--
Steve Rencontre, Design Consultant
http://www.rsn-tech.demon.co.uk/  --  remember to despam return address

Re: which language

[Mike Harrison]

In article <7fctnc$jro$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>, Markus Kuhn
<mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk> writes
>sminstruments@mindspring.com (Tom Maier) writes:
>|> We had a similar problem when a customer ordered a machine
>|> and wanted it all in German.  There was a three position switch
>|> on the front and one of the positions was called "Jog", which
>|> means jerk forward very quickly.  The translator couldn't find
>|> a short word for it and came up with something that was a couple
>|> words that totaled about 20 characters, so this switch had 
>|> about five labels squeezed into that one switch position that
>|> had all those letters on it coming down the front of the control 
>|> panel.  It was hell trying to get it to fit.
>
>This exactly is the reason, why experienced designers today use the
>ISO 7000 and IEC 417 pictograms wherever possible to label equipment
>functions, and not English words. This saves you a lot of translation
>costs and related legal hassles.
>
>http://w3.hike.te.chiba-u.ac.jp/iec417/ver2.0/html/index.html
>http://www1.shore.net/~eurocnsl/symbol2.htm
>
>Markus
>
Then nobody knows what they mean !

A more serious problem arose on a multi-national project I worked on 2
or 3 years ago.

I was doing detailed design/code (in Ada83 - so this is not really Off
Topic), making minor changes based on English text top-level
descriptions of the changes.

For one change, the description used the word 'eventually'. Having lived
in Holland (and speaking Dutch, moderately) this rang alarm bells for
me, especially as some other aspects of the wording made me think that
the designer was German.

In Dutch there is a similar word 'eventueel' (and in German 'eventuell')
whose meaning is rather different from the English.
Where we use the word to mean 'finally, at length', implying that if you
wait long enough the event *will* happen; the Dutch/German words mean
'if the event *should* happen', meaning it may not!

It is one of the commoner misuses in English by Dutch/German speakers.

I sought out the designer, who was German, and after some discussion
established that he meant to imply the conditional German sense of the
word.

The effect of inferring the English meaning in this case was to reverse
the intention of the design change.

While the actual effect in this case would have been quite small, I
shudder to think how many similar (but potentially more serious) errors
there are lurking in the millions of lines of code produced by teams
whose members are not all native speakers of the same language. 

------------------------------------------------------------------
  (mapcar 'standard_disclaimers (my_opinions))

  Change 'devil' to 'demon' for my real email address.

    Mike H.

Re: which language

[aerosoft]

There are many such pitfalls.  Consider that 'organ de control' (Fr)
means in English 'monitoring unit', which is rather different from the
direct translation of 'control unit'.


Mike Harrison wrote:
> 
> In article <7fctnc$jro$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>, Markus Kuhn
> <mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk> writes
> >sminstruments@mindspring.com (Tom Maier) writes:
> >|> We had a similar problem when a customer ordered a machine
> >|> and wanted it all in German.  There was a three position switch
> >|> on the front and one of the positions was called "Jog", which
> >|> means jerk forward very quickly.  The translator couldn't find
> >|> a short word for it and came up with something that was a couple
> >|> words that totaled about 20 characters, so this switch had
> >|> about five labels squeezed into that one switch position that
> >|> had all those letters on it coming down the front of the control
> >|> panel.  It was hell trying to get it to fit.
> >
> >This exactly is the reason, why experienced designers today use the
> >ISO 7000 and IEC 417 pictograms wherever possible to label equipment
> >functions, and not English words. This saves you a lot of translation
> >costs and related legal hassles.
> >
> >http://w3.hike.te.chiba-u.ac.jp/iec417/ver2.0/html/index.html
> >http://www1.shore.net/~eurocnsl/symbol2.htm
> >
> >Markus
> >
> Then nobody knows what they mean !
> 
> A more serious problem arose on a multi-national project I worked on 2
> or 3 years ago.
> 
> I was doing detailed design/code (in Ada83 - so this is not really Off
> Topic), making minor changes based on English text top-level
> descriptions of the changes.
> 
> For one change, the description used the word 'eventually'. Having lived
> in Holland (and speaking Dutch, moderately) this rang alarm bells for
> me, especially as some other aspects of the wording made me think that
> the designer was German.
> 
> In Dutch there is a similar word 'eventueel' (and in German 'eventuell')
> whose meaning is rather different from the English.
> Where we use the word to mean 'finally, at length', implying that if you
> wait long enough the event *will* happen; the Dutch/German words mean
> 'if the event *should* happen', meaning it may not!
> 
> It is one of the commoner misuses in English by Dutch/German speakers.
> 
> I sought out the designer, who was German, and after some discussion
> established that he meant to imply the conditional German sense of the
> word.
> 
> The effect of inferring the English meaning in this case was to reverse
> the intention of the design change.
> 
> While the actual effect in this case would have been quite small, I
> shudder to think how many similar (but potentially more serious) errors
> there are lurking in the millions of lines of code produced by teams
> whose members are not all native speakers of the same language.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>   (mapcar 'standard_disclaimers (my_opinions))
> 
>   Change 'devil' to 'demon' for my real email address.
> 
>     Mike H.

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

mike@ wrote:
> 
> One week after that, I was writing all my new programs in Ada.
> 
> of course, that was a defense contractor I was working for, and they were
> open to me doing that in Ada. so I did not have to hide away while I was
> playing with Ada at work.
> 
> One week. that is all it took. of course I was not an expert after one week,
> but I was writing fully working programs using the basic common features
> of the language.
> 
That is a critical point. If you were starting a major new project in
Ada (or any new language) it would probably be wise to have on the team
at least one "expert" - someone who has either done this before on a
significant project or studied the language in detail to understand its
intracacies - or both. But not all of the developers need to be at that
level just to get started. I'd think of the "expert" as a resource on
which other team members could draw and as someone who should be
involved at the fundamental design level to make sure that the design
and the language fit together well.

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***


Visit my web page at: http://www.flipag.net/mcondic

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Pete Drazenski wrote:
> 
> Thanks for the clarification. I couldn't agree more with your statement above.
> I haven't found any customer willing to fund "cosmetic" changes to a working &
> proven legacy system. Now , obsolecence issues , that's a different story !!
> 
Obsolecence is a wonderful thing. You examine what you learned from the
original system, then start with a clean slate and build on your
experience. All too often though, we don't spend enough time to look at
what was good/bad with an old system before jumping into a new one.
Those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it.

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Visit my web page at: http://www.flipag.net/mcondic

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

bill@ wrote:
> 
> This is so funny.
> 
> I had this same thing happen to me, and it came from my Boss.
> 
<snip>

I think that the point may be communicated well to management with an
analogy that they can understand. For example, if I'm talking to someone
who is primarily an ME, I would point to the design of a turbine blade.
The blade itself is like the software - it is the actual working part.
If you were to tell me to hurry up and start casting/machining blades,
would this make sense? Not if we hadn't done the design up front,
performed computational fluid dynamics tests on the design, passed
through the related hoops to verify that the design was sound and come
up with a correct blueprint. Otherwise, your just making chips on the
machine room floor because you *know* whatever you build is not going to
be right.

Similar analogies can be found in almost any field.

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***


Visit my web page at: http://www.flipag.net/mcondic

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Stephen Maudsley wrote:
> The answer to the question used to be "'cos that's what the physics
> says" when I last worked in this area. Do we have the same definition of
> cycle time? I'm assuming that Marin's definition refers to the control
> loop bandwidth that he has. If that's the case then monotonic rate
> schedulers help out in ensuring the loop requirements are satisfied but
> don't help you increase them. Or have I missed something?
> 
Exactly! If you are controlling the motion of a valve which is capable
of a given speed & slew limit, you've got to sense & command the valve
at a certain rate or you're going to slam it into the stops and break
it. There is a lot of control theory out there from which you can
calculate what all these numbers are and how to properly keep the device
where you want it. (This is not my forte - I do the OS software, not the
control part. Although you need to absorb a good deal of that to do the
whole job!)

A simple analogy is stepping on the brakes in your car. When sober, you
can move from the gas to the brake within a given time span and
successfully stop the car before you smack into the back of the car in
front of you. When "over-served" at the local saloon, you lengthen the
span of time to get the foot from the gas to the brake - potentially
resulting in A Bad Thing.

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Visit my web page at: http://www.flipag.net/mcondic

Re: which language

[Stephen Maudsley]

Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> wrote in message
news:371B4F19.FE6F52C2@pwfl.com...
> Stephen Maudsley wrote:
> > The answer to the question used to be "'cos that's what the physics
> > says" when I last worked in this area. Do we have the same
definition of
> > cycle time? I'm assuming that Marin's definition refers to the
control
> > loop bandwidth that he has. If that's the case then monotonic rate
> > schedulers help out in ensuring the loop requirements are satisfied
but
> > don't help you increase them. Or have I missed something?
> >
> Exactly! If you are controlling the motion of a valve which is capable
> of a given speed & slew limit, you've got to sense & command the valve
> at a certain rate or you're going to slam it into the stops and break
> it. There is a lot of control theory out there from which you can
> calculate what all these numbers are and how to properly keep the
device
> where you want it. (This is not my forte - I do the OS software, not
the
> control part. Although you need to absorb a good deal of that to do
the
> whole job!)
>
> A simple analogy is stepping on the brakes in your car. When sober,
you
> can move from the gas to the brake within a given time span and
> successfully stop the car before you smack into the back of the car in
> front of you. When "over-served" at the local saloon, you lengthen the
> span of time to get the foot from the gas to the brake - potentially
> resulting in A Bad Thing.

Well, I spent some time working on the interesting non-linear
eigenvector stuff as well but it always seemed easier than getting the
timing right because I could see that the matrices were solvable and at
the time there were no analytic tools for the s/w.

--
Stephen Maudsley mailto:Stephen.Maudsley@esgem.com
Esgem Limited: embedded system design http://www.esgem.com
Tel: +44-1453-521626 Mobile: +44-370-810991
Personal pages: http://www.esgem.com/people/Stephen.Maudsley

Re: which language

[Stephen Maudsley]

Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> wrote in message
news:371B46CB.A2FEF0F0@pwfl.com...
> mike@ wrote:
> >
> > One week after that, I was writing all my new programs in Ada.
> >
> > of course, that was a defense contractor I was working for, and they
were
> > open to me doing that in Ada. so I did not have to hide away while I
was
> > playing with Ada at work.
> >
> > One week. that is all it took. of course I was not an expert after
one week,
> > but I was writing fully working programs using the basic common
features
> > of the language.
> >
> That is a critical point. If you were starting a major new project in
> Ada (or any new language) it would probably be wise to have on the
team
> at least one "expert" - someone who has either done this before on a
> significant project or studied the language in detail to understand
its
> intracacies - or both. But not all of the developers need to be at
that
> level just to get started. I'd think of the "expert" as a resource on
> which other team members could draw and as someone who should be
> involved at the fundamental design level to make sure that the design
> and the language fit together well.

When building a team up for a project I do favour having an "architect"
there from the beginning to champion the design - with the support to
resolve disgreements when the implementors start to bend the design. It
nearly always seems to generate a more elegant design, even on big
projects, to have a "supreme authority".

--
Stephen Maudsley mailto:Stephen.Maudsley@esgem.com
Esgem Limited: embedded system design http://www.esgem.com
Tel: +44-1453-521626 Mobile: +44-370-810991
Personal pages: http://www.esgem.com/people/Stephen.Maudsley

Re: which language

[Michel Pitermann]

"David Brown" <david@westcontrol.com> writes:

>I wonder why this is?  In earlier times, the Chinese were far more
>technically advanced than the Europeans.  Was it the invention of the
>printing press that made the difference?  The simplicity of the Latin
>alphabet makes printing (and later typewriters, computer keyboards, and so
>on) far easier in European languages than in languages with more symbols in
>their alphabets.

Some historian of science think that the European breaktrough was born at the
end of 16th century when Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe had a very strange idea
about how to answer the question "Is Earth or Sun the center of the Universe?".
Basically, his idea was to compare "theory" and facts.  He claimed that
measuring motion of planets accurately may give some inlights into this issue.
At that time, thinking that anything but philosophical arguments could help in
this field was very odd.

He made incredibly accurate measurements for that period, but died before
processing it.  Kepler studied the data and produced his three laws.

With the success of Kepler, Newton, Galileo and other philosophs two basic
concepts emerged:

  1. to compare thoughts and measurements is the best way to choose between two
     hypotheses;

  2. a big problem can be broken into smaller ones, and the solution of all the
     small ones can provide the solution to the big one.

Conversely, Chinese thought that everything on Earth should interact because
everything was part of a "whole".  As a consequence, they thought that a
problem could not be broken into smaller ones because we must study and
understand immediately the "whole".

The scientific method can explain a lot when we try to understand why Western
countries passed all other civilizations as far as technology is concerned.

Another point is also the art of war.  Even though Chinese martial arts were
superior to European ones, military strategy has always been better in Western
countries.  Unfortunately, Europe crushed all other culture.

Best regards,

																			pit

-- 

Michel Pitermann, Department of Psychology, Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6.     mpiter@psyc.queensu.ca
Tel: +1 - 613 - 533 6000 ext 75754     Fax: +1 - 613 - 533 2499

Re: which language

[Tim Ottinger]

Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen wrote:
> E pluribus Unix

Hmmm... should that be E pluribus Linux? Unix was from
a small number of initial contributors, but Linux does
come 'from the many'.

Tim
-- 
--------- There is no craftite conspiracy -------------
Tim Ottinger         Object Mentor      OO Training and
ottinger@oma.com      www.oma.com          Mentoring
-------------------------------------------------------
We can interpret a bad temper as a sign of inferiority.
                                        -- Alfred Adler

Re: which language

[Michel Pitermann]

"Didier H. Besset" <didier@ieee.org> writes:

> The peculiarity of France is that it is one of few countries where the
> intellectuals have a serious impact on politics (I mean a real impact, not
> mere inspiration!).

After living in France for several years, I would say that the peculiarity of
France is that it is one of few countries where people think that their
intellectuals have a serious impact on politics.  But like any other place, I
saw that economy was the main leader.  Even their big strikes failed every
time.  I was leaving in France during the big truck strike 18 months ago.  They
blocked all petrol access and successed in paralysing almost all the country.
It was a national catastrophy.  Guess who won: the government.  Truck drivers
only won peanuts.  Do you want to discuss the big strike of previous year in
Paris?  Do you want to discuss how pitiful was all Europe, including France,
when Europe tried to rebel against GATT exchanges?  As usual, the USA imposed
exactly what they wanted and France had to shut up like all other countries.

Do you want to discuss how USA economy is sneaking into France?  Have you ever
wondered why France has to give up is telecommunication monopole France
Telecom?  Have you ever wondered why most French television channels had to be
supported by private companies, mainly through advertissement?  Who hold these
private companies?  Who is slowly taking control of information?

I am European and sad to be controlled by USA economy.  But I do not try to
fool myself about it.

Best regards,

																			pit

-- 

Michel Pitermann, Department of Psychology, Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6.     mpiter@psyc.queensu.ca
Tel: +1 - 613 - 533 6000 ext 75754     Fax: +1 - 613 - 533 2499

Re: which language

[Michel Pitermann]

> >> >ISTR that it is an offence (criminal?) to use a non-French word in
> >> >signage when there is an approved French word.
> >> >
> >> 
> >
> >> I heard somewhere that it is even an offence to make spelling mistakes in
> >> official French publications.
> >
> >It is not a criminal offense, but simple politness : if a french word
> >exists for a concept, why use a foreign one ? For example, why should I

A question of simple politness?

It is ILLEGAL for a professianal talker or writer to use foreign words in many
public institutions dedicated to communication, like television or radio.  They
can be charged for this.  It is ILLEGAL to develop a radio station broadcasting
more than a certain percentage of time in a foreign language (I do not remember
the percentage).  For example, on a music radio station, you cannot escape a
non negligible amount of French songs.  It is ILLEGAL to use foreign language
for any public media in any public service if it is not partly translated in
French.  For example, if a student writes his Web page fully in English, the
Web manager can go to jail for this.  In practice, the Web manager will be only
fined.  It is his job to control every Web page on his server to ensure that
all of them contain some part in French or links to French translations.  I
witnessed it with my own eyes!  Another example I lived is that if a university
organizes an international congress with English proceedings, each paper MUST
contain a French abstract to comply to the law.  As everyone knows all
American, Chinese, Japanese, English and German researchers write fluently in
French :).  Everytime we organized a congress, we were asked to translate
ourself some English abstracts in French :(.

> >say "software", instead of "logiciel", which means exactly the same
> >thing ? Why should I say "driver" instead of its french translation
> >"pilote" ?
> >I spend a lot of time bashing my fellow frenchmen who clutter their
> >french text whith english word instead of using the french equivalent. 
> >Either you speak and write fully in english, either you speak and write
> >fully in french.

The trouble with that is that technology moves faster than language.  There are
many words in some technological fields with unknown translation for most
people.  For example, I do not think that everyone knows that "pilote" is to be
used instead of "driver".  Your other example is very good, I think that
"logiciel" is today widely spread.

I think that French Academy does a very bad job to defend French language.  Is
not it ironic that we are force to use "French" words which are English words
with French spelling, e.g. "Gazole"?  Why not use French roots?

> >It is forbidden to sell a product in France if its manual is not
> >translated in french. But it is only a law, and in France, voting a law
> >does not imply that it will be applied. ;-)

I do not remember buying anything in France with an untranslated manual.  Since
it is against the law, doing it is looking for trouble, and I doubt that any
company would do it.

What I saw many times was manual so badly translated that it was better to look
at the English version.  My guess was that they were automatically translated.

Best regards,

																			pit

-- 

Michel Pitermann, Department of Psychology, Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6.     mpiter@psyc.queensu.ca
Tel: +1 - 613 - 533 6000 ext 75754     Fax: +1 - 613 - 533 2499

Re: which language

[David Brown]

Nick Roberts wrote in message <371b6994@eeyore.callnetuk.com>...
>Keith Wootten wrote in message ...
>
>|Is 'jargonise' a word?
>
>Yes, but it is always spelt "jargonize".
>

Unless you are writing in English rather than American.

Re: which language

[Bob Jacobs]

Michel Pitermann wrote in message
<1hiuasjwhw.fsf@ebbinghaus.psyc.QueensU.CA>...
>After living in France for several years, I would say that the
>peculiarity of France is that it is one of few countries where
>people think that their intellectuals have a serious impact on
>politics.  But like any other place, I saw that economy was
>the main leader.  Even their big strikes failed every time.  I
>was leaving in France during the big truck strike 18 months
>ago. They blocked all petrol access and successed in
>paralysing almost all the country. It was a national catastrophy.
>Guess who won: the government.  Truck drivers only won
>peanuts.  Do you want to discuss the big strike of previous
>year in Paris?

NO!

>Do you want to discuss how pitiful was all Europe, including
>France, when Europe tried to rebel against GATT exchanges?

NO!

>As usual, the USA imposed exactly what they wanted and
>France had to shut up like all other countries. Do you want
>to discuss how USA economy is sneaking into France?

NO!

>Have you ever wondered why France has to give up is
>telecommunication monopole France Telecom?

NO!

>Have you ever wondered why most French television channels
>had to be supported by private companies, mainly through
>advertissement?

NO!

>Who hold these private companies?

I DON'T KNOW!

>Who is slowly taking control of information?

I DON'T CARE!

>I am European and sad to be controlled by USA economy.  But I do
>not try to fool myself about it.

I am British (NOT European) and sad to be reading this nonsense. I come here
to read about C++!

PLEASE! Take this discussion elsewhere, but leave comp.lang.c++ alone!!

--
Bob Jacobs
---------------------------

Re: which language

[David Brown]

Bob Jacobs wrote in message <7fg0tq$mkd$2@news5.svr.pol.co.uk>...
>I am European and sad to be controlled by USA economy.  But I do
>>not try to fool myself about it.
>
>I am British (NOT European) and sad to be reading this nonsense. I come
here
>to read about C++!
>



Perhaps you have misunderstood something - Britain is part of Europe.  If
you are British, you ARE European.

This thread is getting rather unwieldy, and is covering a great many topics.
Is there any way to split up the thread, so that readers can more easily
mask out the topics which are of no interest to them?

David Brown (Scotish, British and European)

Re: which language

[Florian Weimer]

"Stephen Maudsley" <Stephen.Maudsley@esgem.com> writes:

> > That is a critical point. If you were starting a major new project in
> > Ada (or any new language) it would probably be wise to have on the
> team
> > at least one "expert" - someone who has either done this before on a
> > significant project or studied the language in detail to understand
> its
> > intracacies - or both. [...]

> When building a team up for a project I do favour having an "architect"
> there from the beginning to champion the design - with the support to
> resolve disgreements when the implementors start to bend the design. It
> nearly always seems to generate a more elegant design, even on big
> projects, to have a "supreme authority".

Of course, that's a good idea.  Nevertheless it might be wise to have
a `language lawyer' (as Brooks calls him in `The Mythical Man-Month')
in the team whose job is to answer questions regarding the programming
language (like more elegant solutions for a particular coding problem
or those questions raised by unusual concepts of the language).  Such a
language lawyer can usually work for more than one team if they aren't
too large.

Re: which language

[Michael Rubenstein]

On Mon, 19 Apr 1999 20:32:31 +0200, "David Brown"
<david.nospam@westcontrol.com> wrote:

>
>Nick Roberts wrote in message <371b6994@eeyore.callnetuk.com>...
>>Keith Wootten wrote in message ...
>>
>>|Is 'jargonise' a word?
>>
>>Yes, but it is always spelt "jargonize".
>>
>
>Unless you are writing in English rather than American.

It's interesting that the Oxford English Dictionary seems to be
writing in American; it lists "jargonize" but not "jargonise."
--
Michael M Rubenstein

Re: which language

[John Blackwood]

>Jose Ramon Arias wrote:
> 
> I heard about laws that banned the Spanish in some USA states primary schools.
> Is that true? It's that idiotic and anal-retentive laws too?
> 

Yes, many states have limited the teaching of a language, other than
English, as the primary language. Years of bi-lingual education have
showed little progress at a very high cost. Studies have shown that
getting students, without a native English background, into English
primary education is best for the students. If you are not aware,
English is the only language of the United States. Spanish (also French,
German, etc.) is still taught as a "Foreign Language" in this country.

Idiotic and anal retentive, I suggest that you look in the mirror.

John Blackwood

Re: which language

[Steve Rencontre]

On Tue, 20 Apr 1999 01:14:32 GMT, in
<3721d4be.653122510@nntp.ix.netcom.com> miker3@ix.netcom.com (Michael
Rubenstein) wrote:

>On Mon, 19 Apr 1999 20:32:31 +0200, "David Brown"
><david.nospam@westcontrol.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>Nick Roberts wrote in message <371b6994@eeyore.callnetuk.com>...
>>>Keith Wootten wrote in message ...
>>>
>>>|Is 'jargonise' a word?
>>>
>>>Yes, but it is always spelt "jargonize".
>>>
>>
>>Unless you are writing in English rather than American.
>
>It's interesting that the Oxford English Dictionary seems to be
>writing in American; it lists "jargonize" but not "jargonise."

That's a long and complicated story, but suffice to say that the OED
has always been considered to disagree with other authorities on this
matter.

I believe even they've now given in and accepted that -ise is standard
(UK) English, not -ize.

And hey! Splitting infinitives is now officially ok, too :-)
--
Steve Rencontre, Design Consultant
http://www.rsn-tech.demon.co.uk/  --  remember to despam return address

Re: which language

[erikc]

On 19 Apr 1999 15:11:23 -0400
Michel Pitermann <mpiter@ebbinghaus.psyc.QueensU.CA> wrote:
-- origin: comp.arch.embedded:

>|> >> >ISTR that it is an offence (criminal?) to use a non-French word in
>|> >> >signage when there is an approved French word.
>|> >> >
>|> >> 
>|> >
>|> >> I heard somewhere that it is even an offence to make spelling mistakes in
>|> >> official French publications.
>|> >
>|> >It is not a criminal offense, but simple politness : if a french word
>|> >exists for a concept, why use a foreign one ? For example, why should I
>|
>|A question of simple politness?
>|
>|It is ILLEGAL for a professianal talker or writer to use foreign words in many
>|public institutions dedicated to communication, like television or radio.  They
>|can be charged for this.  It is ILLEGAL to develop a radio station broadcasting
>|more than a certain percentage of time in a foreign language (I do not remember

[snip further examples]

Is there a *reason* for such idiotic and anal-retentive laws?




Erikc (alt.atheist #002) | "An Fhirinne in aghaidh an tSaoil." 
BAAWA Knight             |      "The Truth against the World."
ICQ 26776011             |                           -- Bardic Motto
If we don't believe in freedom of expression for
people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
   ---- Noam Chomsky

Re: which language

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <371afeff.515633703@localhost>, Steve@XXX_REMOVE_XXXrsn-tech.demon.co.uk (Steve Rencontre) writes:
> On 16 Apr 1999 09:07:02 -0700, in <7f7n76$o57@drn.newsguy.com> mike@
> wrote:

>>One week after that, I was writing all my new programs in Ada.
>> [...]
>>One week. that is all it took. of course I was not an expert after one week,
>>but I was writing fully working programs using the basic common features
>>of the language.
> 
> But were you producing better, more reliable code, more quickly than
> you would have done in your previously preferred language?
> 
> I have never disputed that any decent programmer can pick up a new
> language in a few days, but that's not the point. Are you really
> suggesting that merely adopting a new language will, in and of itself,
> bring about quantifiable major improvements in quality?

Yes!

It may not lead to the most beautiful Ada code as judged by a panel
of experts, but the compiler is checking for many errors that are
totally undetected by users of other languages, including those C
programmers who avoid LINT because of ambiguities in vendor-supplied
header files.

> Perhaps you are. Perhaps you're right. I'm still sceptical, though.

The only way to resolve skepticism in reaction to personal accounts
is to try it yourself.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: which language

[John English]

Eric Doenges wrote:
> I'm no linguist, but I doubt that english
> has absorbed anything of non-European languages.

Do you count words like "bungalow", "igloo" and "orang-utan"?

> To go back on topic - I suspect that most people choose C or C++ because
> tools and books about these two are readily availible. I've always wanted
> to take a closer look at Forth and ADA (just to name two), but have always
> been held back because of the effort (yeah, I'm lazy) needed to:
> 
> a) get free tools (I'm not going to spend $$$ learning a language that I
> might never use again) - they are availible, but not as easily as a free
> C/C++ environment

Have a look at http://burks.bton.ac.uk/burks/language/ -- Forth, Ada,
and lots of other languages, all waiting for you to enjoy...

-----------------------------------------------------------------
 John English              | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk
 Senior Lecturer           | http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/je
 Dept. of Computing        | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS **
 University of Brighton    |    -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Steve Rencontre wrote:
> 
> But were you producing better, more reliable code, more quickly than
> you would have done in your previously preferred language?
> 
> I have never disputed that any decent programmer can pick up a new
> language in a few days, but that's not the point. Are you really
> suggesting that merely adopting a new language will, in and of itself,
> bring about quantifiable major improvements in quality?
> 
> Perhaps you are. Perhaps you're right. I'm still sceptical, though.
> 
A programming language cannot and will not ever stop someone from
producing bad code. It doesn't matter what language you want to pick,
this statement will remain true. An ingenious idiot can always find a
way of fouling things up.

That said...

Yes, adopting a new language will, in and of itself, bring about
quantifiable improvements in quality. The "major" part depends on what
the definition of "major" is. I've got ten years of metrics on similar
projects which indicate that a programming language will impact the
error rate. (We can debate the validity of the data or the experiment
conditions, etc. until the cows come home. Yet it is significantly
better evidence of improvement than no data at all or rectally extracted
opinions about what is better or worse.)

Naturally, I would have to qualify this further by saying that it also
depends on what language you start with and what language you move to.
But this seems obvious.

Consider this: When the world by and large gave up programming
everything in assembler and started programming in a high level
language, was there a "quantifiable major improvement in quality?" That
this is true seems to be - if not obvious - at least widely believed. So
if we switch from a language which is highly prone to syntax traps,
weakly typed and loosely defined to one which is strongly typed, tightly
defined, less prone to syntax traps and provides for lots of compiler
checking, wouldn't it seem plausable that a whole series of common
errors are going to get eliminated in the process? I wouldn't think this
is hard to believe.

Let me add one more thing in this area: Ada is obviously not the only
language which may show an improvement in a defect rate. As I said, it
depends on what you start with and what you move to. Based on our data
and experience we conclude that Ada gives us an improvement from
assembler, C, Fortran and a couple of squirley home-brewed languages
that are similar to Pascal. Is there something out there which would
show an improvement over Ada? Possibly. But from what I know of C++, I
don't think that language would be the one.

-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Visit my web page at: http://www.flipag.net/mcondic

Re: which language

[Michel Pitermann]

firewevrMAPSITNA@insync.net (erikc) writes:

> Is there a *reason* for such idiotic and anal-retentive laws?

Yes, protecting French culture.  A big part of culture is hidden in language
and they try to fight as much as they can against anglicizing.

Best regards,

				      pit

-- 

Michel Pitermann, Department of Psychology, Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6.     mpiter@psyc.queensu.ca
Tel: +1 - 613 - 533 6000 ext 75754     Fax: +1 - 613 - 533 2499

Re: which language

[Rufus V. Smith]

erikc wrote in message <371bfa51.447289571@news.insync.net>...
>On 19 Apr 1999 15:11:23 -0400
>[snip further examples]
>
>Is there a *reason* for such idiotic and anal-retentive laws?
>


Idiotic and anal-retentive legislators?

Re: which language

[Ken Keys]

Marin David Condic wrote:


> Yes, adopting a new language will, in and of itself, bring about
> quantifiable improvements in quality. The "major" part depends on what
> the definition of "major" is. I've got ten years of metrics on similar
> projects which indicate that a programming language will impact the
> error rate. (We can debate the validity of the data or the experiment
> conditions, etc. until the cows come home. Yet it is significantly
> better evidence of improvement than no data at all or rectally extracted
> opinions about what is better or worse.)

I don't doubt your data but I might fault your conclusions because you
seem to be ignoring other perhaps more important factors such as various
design issues. 

I don't think that anyone will see a massive improvement in quality in
moving from C to C++. At least that would be the case if facilities such
as function prototypes which are required in C++ but optional in C were
being used in both cases. What can be said is that C++ offers tools that
can lead to the construction of programs which, in the large, are more
understandable, debugable and maintainable.

Likewise, I doubt that if you have a subroutine that is giving you
trouble, recoding it in Ada will fix it. In fact, I don't think that
Ada's biggest contribution to quality is the fact that it is so
persnickety about type conversions. Ada encourages, and in some cases
requires, good structured code and a modular, understandable design. If
you were to employ the same level of discipline in FORTRAN or even
assembly (granted that is a big if) I think you would see a noticeable
effect in the metrics.

KLK

Re: which language

[Marin David Condic]

Ken Keys wrote:
> I don't doubt your data but I might fault your conclusions because you
> seem to be ignoring other perhaps more important factors such as various
> design issues.
> 
> I don't think that anyone will see a massive improvement in quality in
> moving from C to C++. At least that would be the case if facilities such
> as function prototypes which are required in C++ but optional in C were
> being used in both cases. What can be said is that C++ offers tools that
> can lead to the construction of programs which, in the large, are more
> understandable, debugable and maintainable.
> 
I think I said here or elsewhere that it *will* make a difference
depending on where you start and where you go to. I would be inclined to
agree that switching from C to C++ is probably not going to get massive
improvements in defect rate - although I will qualify my opinion on that
by saying I don't know much about C++. (My impression is that it still
maintains compatibility with many of C's syntax traps, etc. and hence it
is possible to continue to generate the same bugs that C is known for -
albeit, C++ may discourage this by providing a different idiom.)


> Likewise, I doubt that if you have a subroutine that is giving you
> trouble, recoding it in Ada will fix it. In fact, I don't think that
> Ada's biggest contribution to quality is the fact that it is so
> persnickety about type conversions. Ada encourages, and in some cases
> requires, good structured code and a modular, understandable design. If
> you were to employ the same level of discipline in FORTRAN or even
> assembly (granted that is a big if) I think you would see a noticeable
> effect in the metrics.
> 
Obviously not. If you have flawed logic, it will still be flawed logic
even when coded in Ada. My claim is simply that when we began using Ada
for engine control development as opposed to a number of other
languages, defects in the software went down in a measurable &
quantifiable way. My belief is that it is specifically because the
compiler does so much checking that it catches the simple, easy to make,
boneheaded mistakes that any programmer can make from time to time.

And of course someone can write good solid code in Fortran or C or
Assembler - exercising discipline and lots of care will produce better
results. My interest in this context is not necessarily in what is
*possible* with a given language but what is the actual *result* in a
real world setting.

The folks we have working older controls coded in assembler, C, Fortran,
etc. are every bit as smart and well trained and experienced as the
folks doing the newer controls in Ada. Often people work both ends of
the spectrum, so its not like we're talking about those who exercise
discipline versus those who don't. And there isn't any major
qualitatitive difference from one control to another - they all have to
do basically the same things. I realize that there are other factors
which may be influencing error rates - fundamental design differences,
the amount of change the software may be undergoing, etc. etc. etc. Yet
when you read the stacks of bug reports and compare the data
statistically, you see the reduction in defects and can convince
yourself that many of the errors which are occurring in one system which
are *not* occurring in another system are due to the fact that one
language allows boneheaded mistakes to get through and the other
language does not. Hence I have a practical interest in developing
embedded software in Ada.

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Visit my web page at: http://www.flipag.net/mcondic

Re: which language

[James Meyer]

On Tue, 20 Apr 1999 04:08:14 GMT, firewevrMAPSITNA@insync.net (erikc)
wrote:


>>|It is ILLEGAL for a professianal talker or writer to use foreign words in many
>>|public institutions dedicated to communication, like television or radio.  They
>>|can be charged for this.  It is ILLEGAL to develop a radio station broadcasting
>>|more than a certain percentage of time in a foreign language (I do not remember
>
>[snip further examples]
>
>Is there a *reason* for such idiotic and anal-retentive laws?

	Yes, but it's ILLEGAL for me to tell you what it is.

	Well... I *could* tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

	Jim "Agent Provocateur" Meyer

Re: which language

[Jose Ramon Arias]

In article <7fi7hc$bf8$1@nnrp02.primenet.com>, "Rufus V. Smith" <Rufus_Smith@GuntherIntl.com> wrote:
>
>erikc wrote in message <371bfa51.447289571@news.insync.net>...
>>On 19 Apr 1999 15:11:23 -0400
>>[snip further examples]
>>
>>Is there a *reason* for such idiotic and anal-retentive laws?
>>
>
>
>Idiotic and anal-retentive legislators?
>

I heard about laws that banned the Spanish in some USA states primary schools.
Is that true? It's that idiotic and anal-retentive laws too?

--
To reply, remove the asterics.
Para contestar, quitar los asteriscos de la direccion.

Re: which language

[John Blackwood]

Florian Weimer wrote:
> 
> John Blackwood <john_blackwood@adc.com> writes:
> 
> > If you are not aware, English is the only language of the United
> > States. Spanish (also French, German, etc.) is still taught as a
> > "Foreign Language" in this country.
> 
> Is it true that it wasn't clear from the beginning that English would
> become the main language in the United States?  Our history teacher told
> us that some kind of committee voted for English as official language,
> but the margin of victory was quite small.

The original 13 States were not only British Colonies, but were settled
by British. The French influence was mainly in Canada and through New
Orleans to the west. The Spanish influence was mainly through the states
that boarder Mexico. Starting in the 1800s (and still going on) many
Europeans and Asians started immigrating into the Country. The number of
languages in use today, may be the most of any country; however, the
official language is still English (you must speak some English to
become a citizen). Many State Governments require companies post
regulations regarding employee rights in English and another language
(here in Texas it is Spanish). The point is that English is the common
language for all Americans, though many of us speak other languages in
our homes. Having multiple official languages is not only a bureaucratic
mess but costly, an example that I have seen is Canada.

John Blackwood

Re: which language

[Hans Dermot Doran]

> our homes. Having multiple official languages is not only a bureaucratic
> mess but costly, an example that I have seen is Canada.

I thought French was the official language, English being the tolerated
reserve for the underclass ??


Hans


> John Blackwood

Re: which language

[Ola Liljedahl]

John Blackwood wrote:
> 
> Florian Weimer wrote:
> >
> > John Blackwood <john_blackwood@adc.com> writes:
> >
> > > If you are not aware, English is the only language of the United
> > > States. Spanish (also French, German, etc.) is still taught as a
> > > "Foreign Language" in this country.
> >
> > Is it true that it wasn't clear from the beginning that English would
> > become the main language in the United States?  Our history teacher told
> > us that some kind of committee voted for English as official language,
> > but the margin of victory was quite small.
> 
> The original 13 States were not only British Colonies, but were settled
> by British. The French influence was mainly in Canada and through New
> Orleans to the west. The Spanish influence was mainly through the states
> that boarder Mexico. Starting in the 1800s (and still going on) many
> Europeans and Asians started immigrating into the Country. The number of
> languages in use today, may be the most of any country; however, the
> official language is still English (you must speak some English to

When I studied the English language at university 10 years ago I was
taught that USA did not have any official language. But that some people
were working hard at making English that language. Did they actually
succeed? I would think that should be harder and harder nowadays, English
not dominating in the way it did perhaps 50 years ago. My personal theory,
it might well be wrong.

> become a citizen). Many State Governments require companies post
> regulations regarding employee rights in English and another language
> (here in Texas it is Spanish). The point is that English is the common
> language for all Americans, though many of us speak other languages in
> our homes. Having multiple official languages is not only a bureaucratic
> mess but costly, an example that I have seen is Canada.
--
	Ola Liljedahl

Re: which language

[Mark A Biggar]

Jose Ramon Arias wrote:

> I heard about laws that banned the Spanish in some USA states primary schools.
> Is that true? It's that idiotic and anal-retentive laws too?

These laws are not against teaching Spanish (as a foreign language), they are
against teach things like math, history and science IN Spanish instead of
English.  Several southwestern states have expermented in what is called
Bi-lingual education in a attempt to help students who do not speak English
as a first language; the usual result being a lot of students that never learn
English.  So there has receintly been a backlash against Bi-lingual education,
thus the laws you have heard about.

Of course the Teachers Unions are trying to fight this as Bi-lingual teachers
get more money.  The scientific evidence seems to be that the most effective
way to help such students is a complete emmurssion program in English with
as little help in the students original language as possible, but that's harder
to do them Bi-lingual education.

--
Mark Biggar
mark.a.biggar@lmco.com

Re: which language

[Bob Jackson]

"Rufus V. Smith" wrote:

> erikc wrote in message <371bfa51.447289571@news.insync.net>...
> >On 19 Apr 1999 15:11:23 -0400
> >[snip further examples]
> >
> >Is there a *reason* for such idiotic and anal-retentive laws?
> >
>
> Idiotic and anal-retentive legislators?

I'd guess that means that the French never had a chance with their

drive to remain unique. That particular facet of society seems to
be
common with all of us. ;-)


--
Bob Jackson    bobnjudy@.sierranet.onthedottedlinenet

"These are indeed harsh times for the dim." - jott@snugbug.cts.com

To reply, cut on the dotted line

Re: which language

[Bob Jackson]

Bob Jacobs wrote:

> Michel Pitermann wrote in message
> <snip>

> >I am European and sad to be controlled by USA economy.  But I do

> >not try to fool myself about it.
>
> I am British (NOT European) and sad to be reading this nonsense. I come here
> to read about C++!
>
> PLEASE! Take this discussion elsewhere, but leave comp.lang.c++ alone!!
>

Then ignore this thread, Bob. That's why we have subject lines.

--
Bob Jackson    bobnjudy@.sierranet.onthedottedlinenet

"These are indeed harsh times for the dim." - jott@snugbug.cts.com
To reply, cut on the dotted line

Re: which language

[David Brown]

Steve Rencontre wrote in message <371c5c2b.605021734@localhost>...
>And hey! Splitting infinitives is now officially ok, too :-)
>--



"To boldy go" has always been OK :)

Re: which language

[Florian Weimer]

John Blackwood <john_blackwood@adc.com> writes:

> If you are not aware, English is the only language of the United
> States. Spanish (also French, German, etc.) is still taught as a
> "Foreign Language" in this country.

Is it true that it wasn't clear from the beginning that English would
become the main language in the United States?  Our history teacher told
us that some kind of committee voted for English as official language,
but the margin of victory was quite small.

Re: which language

[Michel Pitermann]

Keith Wootten <Keith@wootten.demon.co.uk> writes:

> Why do the French use the word 'Logiciel' for a computer program, when
> 'program', or at least the quainter 'programme' is a French word?  This

Yes, "programme" is a French work meaning "computer program" or a sequence of
planned activities or events like "television program", "show or any type of
event program", "academic program", etc.  Hence, you can translate "program" by
"programme" and "software" by "logiciel".  The latter is more specific and is a
useful word avoiding ambiguities.  It is the same in English with "software".

> Why do some English people say 'francophone' instead of 'French
> speaking'?  Does it convey any extra meaning, or is it simply an attempt
> to jargonise what is a very simple concept?   Is 'jargonise' a word? 

One Feature of English I like is that the language is open to other languages.
I do not remember the exact statistics, but English owns more French words than
the opposite, specially in army and cooking fields (as a consequence of the old
French Empire a few centuries ago).  "Anglophone" is in the Collins Cobuild
dictionnary second edition.  "Francophone" is not, but exists in French, is the
corresponding word to "Anglophone", and is shorter than the phrase "French
speaking".  I am therefore not surprised that it is already in use.

Best regards,

																			pit

-- 

Michel Pitermann, Department of Psychology, Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6.     mpiter@psyc.queensu.ca
Tel: +1 - 613 - 533 6000 ext 75754     Fax: +1 - 613 - 533 2499

Re: which language

[Iain Hallam]

>Yes, "programme" is a French work meaning "computer program" or a sequence
of
>planned activities or events like "television program", "show or any type
of
>event program", "academic program", etc.  Hence, you can translate
"program" by
>"programme" and "software" by "logiciel".  The latter is more specific and
is a
>useful word avoiding ambiguities.  It is the same in English with
"software".


But "program" should only be used in the sense of a computer. When it refers
to a list of events elsewhere, or a television broadcast, the correct word
is "programme". This is a similar case to the two words "disc" and "disk".
The former refers to a flat cylinder, while the latter (a derivative of
"diskette") refers to a computer storage medium.

- Iain.

Re: which language

[Seth Jones]

In article <FAMItr.2F5@fsa.bris.ac.uk>, iain@bits.bris.ac.uk says...
> But "program" should only be used in the sense of a computer. When it refers
> to a list of events elsewhere, or a television broadcast, the correct word
> is "programme". This is a similar case to the two words "disc" and "disk".
> The former refers to a flat cylinder, while the latter (a derivative of
> "diskette") refers to a computer storage medium.

You mean that American spellings are used in the UK, but only in the 
context of computing? That's amusing.

Seth Jones

Re: which language

[Dermot Musgrove]

Seth Jones wrote:
> 
> In article <FAMItr.2F5@fsa.bris.ac.uk>, iain@bits.bris.ac.uk says...
> > But "program" should only be used in the sense of a computer. When it refers
> > to a list of events elsewhere, or a television broadcast, the correct word
> > is "programme". This is a similar case to the two words "disc" and "disk".
> > The former refers to a flat cylinder, while the latter (a derivative of
> > "diskette") refers to a computer storage medium.
> 
> You mean that American spellings are used in the UK, but only in the
> context of computing? That's amusing.
> 
> Seth Jones
Hi, thats right :-) We use program, disk etc but _only_ for pooters
although I'm sure that it won't be for long.
-- 
Dermot Musgrove

email dermot.musgrove at virgin.net
URL   http://freespace.virgin.net/dermot.musgrove/

Re: which language

[Keith Wootten]

In article <3721D08B.1A861741@virgin.net>, Dermot Musgrove
<dermot.musgrove@virgin.net> writes
>Seth Jones wrote:
>> 
>> You mean that American spellings are used in the UK, but only in the
>> context of computing? That's amusing.
>> 
>> Seth Jones
>Hi, thats right :-) We use program, disk etc but _only_ for pooters
>although I'm sure that it won't be for long.

The BBC's official technical policy in the seventies (and before for all
I know), was to refer to records (remember them?) as disks.  This was
supposedly to prevent confusion with other flat round things which were,
of course, discs.  I think there must have been too many highly paid
people with too much time on their hands.

Cheers
-- 
Keith Wootten

Re: which language

[pyrrhon1]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 437 bytes --]


Iain Hallam wrote in message ...
>>Yes, "programme" is a French work meaning "computer program" or a sequence
>of
>>planned activities or events like "television program",

If I am not mistaken , the word "programme" in French does not actually
refer to the program itself, but rather to the listing, as in the TVGuide.
The word usually used for the program itself is "�mission."

Feel free to correct me if this is wrong.

Doug

Re: which language

[Michel Pitermann]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 514 bytes --]

"pyrrhon1" <pyrrhon1@ix.netcom.com> writes:

> If I am not mistaken , the word "programme" in French does not actually
> refer to the program itself, but rather to the listing, as in the TVGuide.
> The word usually used for the program itself is "�mission."

You are right.  Best regards,

																			pit

-- 

Michel Pitermann, Department of Psychology, Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6.     mpiter@psyc.queensu.ca
Tel: +1 - 613 - 533 6000 ext 75754     Fax: +1 - 613 - 533 2499

Re: which language

[Michel Pitermann]

"Iain Hallam" <iain@bits.bris.ac.uk> writes:

> But "program" should only be used in the sense of a computer. When it refers
> to a list of events elsewhere, or a television broadcast, the correct word
> is "programme".

I did not know it.  Thanks to underline it because I need the word from time to
time when I write articles.

We do not have this distinction in French.  Only "programme" exists.  So the
question should not be "why use 'logiciel' in French" but "why use 'software'
in English if 'program' already exists"?

Best regards,

																			pit

-- 

Michel Pitermann, Department of Psychology, Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6.     mpiter@psyc.queensu.ca
Tel: +1 - 613 - 533 6000 ext 75754     Fax: +1 - 613 - 533 2499

Re: which language

[Dave Hansen]

On 26 Apr 1999 12:31:22 -0400, Michel Pitermann
<mpiter@mcgurk.psyc.queensu.ca> wrote:

[...]
>We do not have this distinction in French.  Only "programme" exists.  So the
>question should not be "why use 'logiciel' in French" but "why use 'software'
>in English if 'program' already exists"?

One of my least favorite "English" expressions from the Department of
Redundency Department is "software program."  Most often seen in
marketing "literature."  Moral of the story: Never use one word when
two will do...

Regards,

                          -=Dave
Just my (10-010) cents
I can barely speak for myself, so I certainly can't speak for B-Tree.
Change is inevitable.  Progress is not.

Re: which language

[Robert Dewar]

In article <FAMItr.2F5@fsa.bris.ac.uk>,
  "Iain Hallam" <iain@bits.bris.ac.uk> wrote:

> But "program" should only be used in the sense of a
> computer. When it refers to a list of events elsewhere,
> or a television broadcast, the correct word is
> "programme".

Well, let's reach for the trusty OED Second Edition Volume
XII Poise-Quelt.

The entry is

program, programme

so right away we know the OED prefers the first spelling.

All the early citations use the spelling program. As the
OED notes:

  "about the beginning of the 19th centry reintroduced
  from French, programme ..."

  The earlier program was retained by Scott, Carlyle,
  Hamilton, and others and would be preferable.
  ...

  However, program and programme have become established
  as the standard N Amer. and British spellings
  respectively, with the exception that program is used
  everywhere in connection with computing."

So feel free to use the spelling program generally even
in Britain, and if people object tell them that you are
fighting for the purity of the language, and resisting
French contamination

 This is a similar case to the two words
> "disc" and "disk". The former refers to a flat cylinder,
>< while the latter (a derivative of
> "diskette") refers to a computer storage medium.

Sorry, I can only lug one volume of the OED II upstairs
at a time :-)

-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/       Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own    

Re: which language

[RC]

In <3721D08B.1A861741@virgin.net>, Dermot Musgrove
<dermot.musgrove@virgin.net> writes
>Seth Jones wrote:
>> 
>> In article <FAMItr.2F5@fsa.bris.ac.uk>, iain@bits.bris.ac.uk says...
>> > But "program" should only be used in the sense of a computer. When it refers
>> > to a list of events elsewhere, or a television broadcast, the correct word
>> > is "programme". This is a similar case to the two words "disc" and "disk".
>> > The former refers to a flat cylinder, while the latter (a derivative of
>> > "diskette") refers to a computer storage medium.
>> 
>> You mean that American spellings are used in the UK, but only in the
>> context of computing? That's amusing.
>> 
>> Seth Jones
>Hi, thats right :-) We use program, disk etc but _only_ for pooters
>although I'm sure that it won't be for long.


Program if you can't spell programme correctly.
Disk if you can't spell disc correctly.


Being "just a programmer" is not really an excuse.

Re: which language

[Michael Rubenstein]

On Mon, 26 Apr 1999 21:25:31 GMT, Robert Dewar
<robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com> wrote:

> This is a similar case to the two words
>> "disc" and "disk". The former refers to a flat cylinder,
>>< while the latter (a derivative of
>> "diskette") refers to a computer storage medium.
>
>Sorry, I can only lug one volume of the OED II upstairs
>at a time :-)

You need to invest in the CD-ROM version :-)

According to the OED, disc and disk have the same meaning with
disc listed first.  It contains the comment

	The earlier and better spelling is disk, but disc is now 
	the more usual form in British English, except in sense 
	2g, where disk is commoner as a result of US influence.

I can find nothing to indicate that the first spelling in the
headword is preferred.  Variants appear to be listed
alphabetically.
--
Michael M Rubenstein

Re: US/British English (was: which language, but now way off topic)

[Bob Cousins]

In comp.arch.embedded, Iain Hallam wrote:

>"Program" I suppose seems to be getting used more, but I've _never_ seen
>"dialog" used in England. Pretty much everyone I know would say that it
>should be "dialogue", just like "analogue", which is also really entrenched
>in England.

It's always dangerous to make such a statement as it exposes your limited circle
of acquaintencies ;-)

At work our analog systems engineers use dialog boxes created by their software
colleagues. This is normal usage for me.

-- 
Bob Cousins, Software Engineer.
http://www.lintilla.demon.co.uk/
"We demand that we may, or may not, be philosophers!"

Re: US/British English (was: which language, but now way off topic)

[Stephen Warren]

From a contributor to the brain drain...

Dialog is an acceptable word in England, for a computer's dialog box.

However, if you're talking about interaction using speech, then it's a
dialogue.

In many cases of US influence on English, the usage of US spelling is
restricted to a specific technical area, computing being a primary example.

Iain Hallam <iain@bits.bris.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:FAu8y4.5EJ@fsa.bris.ac.uk...
>
> Roy Brokvam wrote in message <9hdV2.35$ZU2.345@news1.online.no>...
> >English not being my native language, I attended a Cambridge course in
> >English. In one of the classes, the differences between British English
and
> >US English were addressed. The lecturer, she came from Oxford (sic!),
told
> >us that a lot of the US English spellings were now (autumn '98)
acceptable
> >in British English as well. "Program" and "dialog" were explicitly given
as
> >examples.
>
>
> "Program" I suppose seems to be getting used more, but I've _never_ seen
> "dialog" used in England. Pretty much everyone I know would say that it
> should be "dialogue", just like "analogue", which is also really
entrenched
> in England.
>
> - Iain.
>
>

Re: (off topic) which language

[GPF]

> We do not have this distinction in French.  Only "programme" exists.  So the
> question should not be "why use 'logiciel' in French" but "why use 'software'
> in English if 'program' already exists"?

'Programme' is correct for all senses. 'Program' is preferred for a code 
unit simply because it is the American spelling and the USA played a 
large part in early computing. 'Software' is effectively plural, and 
refers to non-physical computer components.

Sorry that this is off topic. I tried to keep it brief :)

Re: which language

[aerosoft]

My tuppence worth as a publisher of both discs and disks:

A common North American convention is to use disc for CDs and disk for
magnetic media.

Cheers,

Herman

Michael Rubenstein wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 26 Apr 1999 21:25:31 GMT, Robert Dewar
> <robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> 
> > This is a similar case to the two words
> >> "disc" and "disk". The former refers to a flat cylinder,
> >>< while the latter (a derivative of
> >> "diskette") refers to a computer storage medium.
> >
> >Sorry, I can only lug one volume of the OED II upstairs
> >at a time :-)
> 
> You need to invest in the CD-ROM version :-)
> 
> According to the OED, disc and disk have the same meaning with
> disc listed first.  It contains the comment
> 
>         The earlier and better spelling is disk, but disc is now
>         the more usual form in British English, except in sense
>         2g, where disk is commoner as a result of US influence.
> 
> I can find nothing to indicate that the first spelling in the
> headword is preferred.  Variants appear to be listed
> alphabetically.
> --
> Michael M Rubenstein

Re: which language

[Roy Brokvam]

Iain Hallam wrote in message ...

[snip]

>
>
>But "program" should only be used in the sense of a computer. When it
refers
>to a list of events elsewhere, or a television broadcast, the correct word
>is "programme". This is a similar case to the two words "disc" and "disk".
>The former refers to a flat cylinder, while the latter (a derivative of
>"diskette") refers to a computer storage medium.
>
>- Iain.
>
>

English not being my native language, I attended a Cambridge course in
English. In one of the classes, the differences between British English and
US English were addressed. The lecturer, she came from Oxford (sic!),  told
us that a lot of the US English spellings were now (autumn '98) acceptable
in British English as well. "Program" and "dialog" were explicitly given as
examples.


Regards,

Roy Brokvam
roy.brokvam@conax.com

Re: US/British English (was: which language, but now way off topic)

[Iain Hallam]

Roy Brokvam wrote in message <9hdV2.35$ZU2.345@news1.online.no>...
>English not being my native language, I attended a Cambridge course in
>English. In one of the classes, the differences between British English and
>US English were addressed. The lecturer, she came from Oxford (sic!),  told
>us that a lot of the US English spellings were now (autumn '98) acceptable
>in British English as well. "Program" and "dialog" were explicitly given as
>examples.


"Program" I suppose seems to be getting used more, but I've _never_ seen
"dialog" used in England. Pretty much everyone I know would say that it
should be "dialogue", just like "analogue", which is also really entrenched
in England.

- Iain.

Re: which language

[Everett M. Greene]

In article <3715ECC4.9CC67F42@pwfl.com> Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> writes:
> Eric Doenges wrote:
> > 
> > Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> writes:
> > 
> > >Zero? Zenith? Azimuth? (lots of Arabic words - do those count?)
> > 
> > Ok, maybe I was a bit hasty there - but the original claim was that
> > English was preeminent because it absorbed everything interesting from
> > other languages. I do not think this is the case.
> 
> Point taken & I would agree. English owes far more to Latin & Greek than
> it does to, say, Persian or Chineese. Probably, though, English
> dominates more for economic reasons than anything else. If you want to
> do business with the wealthiest of nations, English is the language in
> which you are going to do that business.

Another reason for the spread of English given in a book about the
language is that, in many nations with multiple ethnic groups, the
decision has often been made to use English as the official language
since the various parties will never agree to use one of the parties'
language as the official one.  In other words, you won't learn my
language and I won't learn yours, so we'll compromise and use English.

The French Academy and assorted French language gestapos have been
quite successful in preventing French from becoming widely used
outside the areas where its use is mandated.

> Which, to bring things back on topic just a bit, would provide a
> metaphor for why a given programming language may be more widespread
> than another - economic considerations over technical merit.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Everett M. Greene   (The Mojave Greene, crotalus scutulatus scutulatus)
Ridgecrest, Ca. 93555           Path: mojaveg@ridgecrest.ca.us

Re: US/British English (was: which language, but now way off topic)

[Mathew Hendry]

>Iain Hallam <iain@bits.bris.ac.uk> wrote in message
>news:FAu8y4.5EJ@fsa.bris.ac.uk...
>> Roy Brokvam wrote in message <9hdV2.35$ZU2.345@news1.online.no>...
>> >English not being my native language, I attended a Cambridge course in
>> >English. In one of the classes, the differences between British English
>and
>> >US English were addressed. The lecturer, she came from Oxford (sic!),
>told
>> >us that a lot of the US English spellings were now (autumn '98)
>acceptable
>> >in British English as well. "Program" and "dialog" were explicitly given
>as
>> >examples.
>>
>>
>> "Program" I suppose seems to be getting used more, but I've _never_ seen
>> "dialog" used in England. Pretty much everyone I know would say that it
>> should be "dialogue", just like "analogue", which is also really
>entrenched
>> in England.

"Analog" seems to be used a fair bit in referring to analagous objects
and ideas - "this is an analog of that" == "this is analagous to
that".

"Analogue" is still favoured when referring to continuous signals -
"vinyl is an analogue medium".

In my experience, anyway...

-- Mat.

Re: which language

[john barnes]

Hello - spelling is always a jolly topic for consuming the odd hour
when one is bored with programming.

Unlike Robert, I only have the smaller SOD (Shorter English
Dictionary), Third Edition 1993.

It confirms what Robert says except that it gives Programme before
Program and so implies that it prefers Programme for Br English in
non-computer contexts. Tragique this French influence. I blame it
all on that Napoleon chap who made parts of the world drive on the
right just because he was left-handed. At least we resisted that!

The third edition of Fowler confirms all this as well but shows
surprise that programme should have prevailed in Br English. The
first and second editions of Fowler quote a presumably earlier
version of the OED and say "and is preferable, as conforming to the
usual English representation of Greek gamma, in anagram, cryptogram,
diagram, telegram, etc". So dammit chaps, always say program.
(Although I am sure that I have seen telegramme on old forms.)

But of course it wasn't always program in the computer context in
England. My 1958 Ferranti Mercury Autocode manual reminds me that
one had to write

   subprogramme 123

when declaring a separate subroutine.

(Mercury was a lovely machine with as much as 1k of 40bit words and
a big drum that went around slowly. And the valves/tubes glowed so
beautifully.)

Indeed I can remember a long discussion about this and then a
company edict came around (sometime in the early 60s) exhorting us
to write program in the computer context.

Indeed this was rather forced upon those who migrated to the solid
state KDF9 since the corresponding instruction was then spelt as
subprogram.

And there's another word. I note that in the US the past participle
of spell seems to be spelt as spelled. And surprising to me my SOD
gives spelled first. However, my copy of The English Language by
Prof Meicklejohn, the 1895 (11th) edition gives it as just spelt.

And similarly I gather that sleeped is used in the US for slept. My
SOD doesn't even mention sleeped.

How about dreamed and dreamt? I would only use dreamed in a poetic
context. Ditto learned/learnt, weeped/wept etc.

Disc and disk is interesting. My old SOD gives a similar distinction
that disk is US and computing. What about Compact Disc in the US?

I promise not to discuss Finalise and Finalize. But again that
Napoleon chap seems to be at the bottom of it.

Cheers


John Barnes

Re: US/British English (was: which language, but now way off topic)

[Paul Joslin]

"Stephen Warren" swarren@slip.net wrote in 
<FsqV2.3738$gv5.1482@news.rdc1.sfba.home.com>:

>From a contributor to the brain drain...
>
>Dialog is an acceptable word in England, for a computer's dialog 
box.
>
>However, if you're talking about interaction using speech, then 
it's a
>dialogue.
>
>In many cases of US influence on English, the usage of US 
spelling is
>restricted to a specific technical area, computing being a 
primary example.
>

And you've no business complaining about what we've done with your 
language until you take back the teletubbies!  :-)
-- 
Paul Joslin
Strange costumes, weird behavior - I must be at work again.

Re: which language

[Jeffrey C. Dege]

On Tue, 27 Apr 1999 09:00:31 +0200, Roy Brokvam <roy.brokvam@conax.com> wrote:
>
>English not being my native language, I attended a Cambridge course in
>English. In one of the classes, the differences between British English and
>US English were addressed. The lecturer, she came from Oxford (sic!),  told
>us that a lot of the US English spellings were now (autumn '98) acceptable
>in British English as well. "Program" and "dialog" were explicitly given as
>examples.

The thing is that most of these oddball British spellings were adopted during
the 17th and 18th centuries, as a way of giving the language a bit more
class (i.e., more like French).  The US spelling continued unchanged.

So it's not a matter of US spellings influencing Britain, it's a matter
of the US refusing to add pointless complications to spellings, and
the British eventually realizing that we were right ;)

-- 
You'd think that after all this time
I would have dreamed up a really clever .sig!

Re: US/British English (was: which language, but now way off topic)

[Bob Cousins]

In comp.arch.embedded, mikemillen@dial.pipex.com wrote:

>I can assure you catagorically that there is no such word in the
>English Language (as used in the UK) as dialog.

You'd be wrong, because it is used by many people here.

However I can assure you categorically there is no such word as "catagorically".

>Certainly the word is used wrt computers in the same way that program
>is, but you will not find any mention of it in the OED.

Duh...the OED is not the UK English language. It's just a book.
-- 
Bob Cousins, Software Engineer.
http://www.lintilla.demon.co.uk/
"We demand that we may, or may not, be philosophers!"

Re: US/British English (was: which language, but now way off topic)

[Stephen Warren]

Paul Joslin <paul.joslin@weirdness.com> wrote in message
news:8DB653F27pauljoslinweirdnessc@news.infinet.com...
> "Stephen Warren" swarren@slip.net wrote in
> <FsqV2.3738$gv5.1482@news.rdc1.sfba.home.com>:
>
> And you've no business complaining about what we've done with your
> language until you take back the teletubbies!  :-)

Well, I'd have to agree fully there!

Re: US/British English (was: which language, but now way off topic)

[mikemillen]

On 1999-04-27 swarren@slip.net said:

   >Dialog is an acceptable word in England, for a computer's dialog
   >box.
   >However, if you're talking about interaction using speech, then
   >it's a dialogue.

I can assure you catagorically that there is no such word in the
English Language (as used in the UK) as dialog.

Certainly the word is used wrt computers in the same way that program
is, but you will not find any mention of it in the OED.

Mike

Harrogate, Yorkshire, England.

Re: US/British English (was: which language, but now way off topic)

[Michael Rubenstein]

On 28 Apr 1999 19:29:11 GMT, mikemillen@dial.pipex.com wrote:

>
>On 1999-04-27 swarren@slip.net said:
>
>   >Dialog is an acceptable word in England, for a computer's dialog
>   >box.
>   >However, if you're talking about interaction using speech, then
>   >it's a dialogue.
>
>I can assure you catagorically that there is no such word in the
>English Language (as used in the UK) as dialog.
>
>Certainly the word is used wrt computers in the same way that program
>is, but you will not find any mention of it in the OED.

You will, however, find it in the New Shorter Oxford English
Dictionary as a variant spelling of dialogue.
--
Michael M Rubenstein

Re: US/British English

[Samuel Mize]

In comp.lang.ada adam@irvine.com wrote:
> In article <3729af0d.254611321@nntp.ix.netcom.com>,
>   miker3@ix.netcom.com (Michael Rubenstein) wrote:
>> On 28 Apr 1999 19:29:11 GMT, mikemillen@dial.pipex.com wrote:
...
>> >Certainly the word is used wrt computers in the same way that program
>> >is, but you will not find any mention of it in the OED.
>>
>> You will, however, find it in the New Shorter Oxford English
>> Dictionary as a variant spelling of dialogue.
>> --
>> Michael M Rubenstein
> 
> Sheesh---don't we have an ISO-standard Language Reference Manual for
> this language yet?  What's taking them so long?

Getting concurrence from the French members of the committee.

Best,
Sam

-- 
Samuel Mize -- smize@imagin.net (home email) -- Team Ada
Fight Spam: see http://www.cauce.org/ \\\ Smert Spamonam

Re: US/British English (was: which language, but now way off topic)

[adam]

In article <3729af0d.254611321@nntp.ix.netcom.com>,
  miker3@ix.netcom.com (Michael Rubenstein) wrote:
> On 28 Apr 1999 19:29:11 GMT, mikemillen@dial.pipex.com wrote:
>
> >
> >On 1999-04-27 swarren@slip.net said:
> >
> >   >Dialog is an acceptable word in England, for a computer's dialog
> >   >box.
> >   >However, if you're talking about interaction using speech, then
> >   >it's a dialogue.
> >
> >I can assure you catagorically that there is no such word in the
> >English Language (as used in the UK) as dialog.
> >
> >Certainly the word is used wrt computers in the same way that program
> >is, but you will not find any mention of it in the OED.
>
> You will, however, find it in the New Shorter Oxford English
> Dictionary as a variant spelling of dialogue.
> --
> Michael M Rubenstein

Sheesh---don't we have an ISO-standard Language Reference Manual for
this language yet?  What's taking them so long?

                                -- Adam


-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/       Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own    

Re: which language

[Rich Walker]

In message <7eipvj$n0a@drn.newsguy.com>
          Steve@nospam wrote:
[snip]
> As a matter of fact, in not a single interview I ever had, did any one ever
> ask me a question related to software quality. Every one was interested 
> in how fast I can code and how many bugs I can find per hour. quality is not
> that important in real world commerical type software. People want software
> that works to some extent, and crashes no more than 5-10 times per day, and
> they will accept that. (after all, how hard is it to hit CTRL-ALT-DEL?) 
> 
> 
> (btw, the normal numbers I use in an interview are 5 functions per hour, 
> and finding 5 bugs per hour, this almost always gets me a job offer on 
> the spot).
[snip]

Can you give us a list of companies that have offered you jobs on
this basis? Just so we don't accidentally ever have anything to do
with the f'wits...



cheers,Rich.




-- 
Rich Walker: rw@shadow.org.uk (Shadow Robot Project)
http://www.shadow.org.uk        251 Liverpool Road
+44(0)171 700 2487                London  N1 1LX
"Sometimes after an electrical storm I see in 5 dimensions"
  -- Cornfed Pig,  Duckman.

Re: which language

[Seth Jones]

In article <1hr9p7z6lh.fsf@mcgurk.psyc.queensu.ca>, 
mpiter@mcgurk.psyc.queensu.ca says...
> We do not have this distinction in French.  Only "programme" exists.  So the
> question should not be "why use 'logiciel' in French" but "why use 'software'
> in English if 'program' already exists"?

Because they don't mean the same thing. (Computer) programs are a subset 
of "software". A graphics library, for example, is software, but it is 
not a program.

Seth Jones