From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Xref: utzoo comp.lang.ada:3296 comp.lang.c:26188 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!encore!pierson From: pierson@encore.com (Dan L. Pierson) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c Subject: Re: problems/risks due to programming language Message-ID: Date: 22 Feb 90 16:05:00 GMT References: <5432@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <8103@hubcap.clemson.edu> <10811@june.cs.washington.edu> <5017@csv.viccol.edu.au> Sender: news@Encore.COM Followup-To: comp.lang.ada Organization: Encore Computer Corporation In-reply-to: dougcc@csv.viccol.edu.au's message of 23 Feb 90 02:00:07 GMT List-Id: In article <5017@csv.viccol.edu.au> dougcc@csv.viccol.edu.au (Douglas Miller) writes: Valid but utterly vacuous point, as ADA *was* designed to provide maximal support for software engineering. I suppose its possible that another (hidden?) design goal was to "have everything". So what? > Software engineering can be done in any language, including C. Irrelevant --- the claim here is that ADA provides *maximal* *support* for the software engineering process. Like, if I said "Air travel is the fastest way to get to another city" and you said "You don't have to go by `plane. You could go by car, or even on foot", then I'd look at you with a slightly glazed expression, right? Sorry to labor this, but I've seen the above point made *too* many times. This bit of ADA mythology (or dogma) has also been made too many times for me to remain silent. Yes, ADA did have a goal of maximal support for the software engineering process. However other goals (and the committee requirements and design process) largely subverted that goal by producing an excessively large, over-specified monster. You can certainly do software engineering in ADA, it is in most ways a better language for the purpose than C, but other languages such as Modula-3, Eiffel, and maybe Turing provide at least the software engineering benefits of ADA (though not all the "nifty" features*) in languages that are small enough to be useable, learnable, teachable, and efficiently implementable in less than a decade. I'm not interested in another C vs. ADA vs. my-favorite-language war, but I'm just plain tired of the line that ADA is equivalent to software engineering because the DOD and those who base their careers on it say so. *In fact, some of these "nifty" features present more opportunity for misuse, and thus software engineering drawbacks, than benefits. Operator overloading comes to mind... -- dan In real life: Dan Pierson, Encore Computer Corporation, Research UUCP: {talcott,linus,necis,decvax}!encore!pierson Internet: pierson@encore.com