Re: 'Cyclone', a safer C--reinventing the wheel

[Brian Rogoff <bpr@bpr.best.vwh.net>]

On Thu, 22 Nov 2001, Marc A. Criley wrote:
> IsraelRT wrote:
> > 
> > On Tue, 20 Nov 2001 12:36:41 GMT, "Marc A. Criley"
> > <mcqada@earthlink.net> wrote:
> > 
> > >So now scientists at Cornell have come up with a "a new computer
> > >language designed to avoid unforeseen programming errors".
> > >
> > >How?  "The Cyclone compiler identifies segments of code that could
> > >eventually cause such problems using a 'type-checking engine'.  This
> > >does not just look for specific strings of code, but analyses the code's
> > >purpose and singles out conflicts known to be potentially dangerous."
> > >
> > >The article is at
> > >http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991578.
> > 
> > Relying on New Scientist can be dangerous...
> 
> So I see.
> 
> Forgive me for receiving an article brief from the ACM Technical mailing
> list, exercising due diligence by reading the full text of the article
> in New Scientist, then apprising this newsgroup of its contents (with a
> posting containing a mild lament that the goal of this language--safer
> programming--is one that has been manifest in Ada since its creation.)

Be honest Marc. Read the title of your own post. It's clear to me that
this post was not dispassionate observation, but a snide attempt to
disparage Cyclone on behalf of Ada. The ACM mailing list usually refers 
to popular journals which are known to be poor sources of information. 

Simply typing "cyclone cornell language" into Google brings you right to
the Cyclone home page. 

I've read lots of negative propaganda about Ada in the popular press, in
fact I've even heard it from the mouths of respected academicians at
Stanford. Does that kind of idiocy bear repeating here? Wouldn't you laugh
at me if I used "The New Hacker Dictionary" to indict Ada?

> Assuming the New Scientist article was reasonably accurate, I abstracted
> it into a brief posting that was at least half quotes from the article. 
> In addition, I stated that I was sure this was not just "C with
> constraint checking", because something as simple as that would hardly
> merit academic reasearch (I'm serious about that, not sarcastic).
> 
> My intent then was to take the next opportunity to do a little more
> research on Cyclone and get the full story behind the New Scientist
> article.

You're being disingenuous again, Marc. The title of this thread suggests 
that *you* are simply saying "Why do these idiots bother creating yet
another C variant when Ada already has everything they want?"

> But since I'm an idiot, an ignoramus, and don't know anything, I
> probably wouldn't understand it.

Your *post* was certainly idiotic and ignorant, but it's a big leap from
there to the insult you're responding to. 

-- Brian