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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,bf72ca9e8a6b3cf X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Ehud Lamm Subject: Re: Software Engineering in Florida Date: 1999/11/08 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 546069488 References: <1e0rgtb.6j187t1hibcsaN@[209.132.126.64]> <7vv26t$tju$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <804plo$dvs$1@nntp5.atl.mindspring.net> <807202$9if$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.huji.ac.il X-Trace: news.huji.ac.il 942095768 6598 132.64.178.45 (8 Nov 1999 21:16:08 GMT) Organization: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Mime-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: 8 Nov 1999 21:16:08 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-11-08T21:16:08+00:00 List-Id: On Mon, 8 Nov 1999, Robert Dewar wrote: | | |I hope not, this is a useless idea, It is indeed dangerous. When I ask students questions that compare (let's say) Ada95 and Java solutions to a creatin issue, they usually say "well obviously Ada is better.... This is an Ada course, and the course is titled 'Ada and Software Engineering'...." I always tell them that (a) this is not a valid argument in anycase (we might call this fallacy an "Ad Languagem" instead of "Ad Hominem"... (b) Many times it is plain wrong and (c) that it is entirly possible, and worthwhile to study SE issues in C, for example, beacuse the setting is deifferent, methods are different, and some issues that ARE solved in Ada must be creatively solved in C. An anecdote.(But please don't take this to seriously) We had a question that asked "What methods can you use in C/Pascal to make your code more flexible to changes?" Most students gave the obvious "comments, constants, subroutines" answer. But one gave me a list of C "tricks" like using "void *", now this may not be very elegant and generics in Ada are nicer etc. - but it is indeed a common approach in C. The student received a bonus plus a comment asking him to make sure he knows the implications of this trick on his systems reliability etc. SE is not a language issue - even though languages are tools that can help or interfere with the production of good software. There is no one-to-one mapping, and all languages will have SE issues. Ehud Lamm mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il http://purl.oclc.org/NET/ehudlamm <== My home on the web Check it out and subscribe to the E-List- for interesting essays and more!