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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 107f24,582dff0b3f065a52 X-Google-Attributes: gid107f24,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,bc1361a952ec75ca X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,582dff0b3f065a52 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,582dff0b3f065a52 X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-08-02 08:53:50 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!nycmny1-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!newsfeed.mathworks.com!news.join.ad.jp!Q.T.Honey!newsfeed.rim.or.jp!newsfeed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!sjc-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!sea-read.news.verio.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.functional From: Brian Rogoff Subject: Re: How Ada could have prevented the Red Code distributed denial of service attack. In-Reply-To: <3B68DE74.2F9E5928@home.com> Message-ID: References: <3B672322.B5EA1B66@home.com> <5ee5b646.0108010949.5abab7fe@posting.google.com> <%CX97.14134$ar1.47393@www.newsranger.com> <3B68DE74.2F9E5928@home.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 15:53:37 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.184.139.136 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verio.net X-Trace: sea-read.news.verio.net 996767617 206.184.139.136 (Thu, 02 Aug 2001 15:53:37 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 15:53:37 GMT Organization: Verio Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:11093 comp.lang.c:71669 comp.lang.c++:79357 comp.lang.functional:7191 Date: 2001-08-02T15:53:37+00:00 List-Id: On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote: > Dale Stanbrough wrote: > > Perhaps I should ask you this question... > > > > Would you be happy if the C language went back to not > > enforcing/type checking parameters to functions? > > I have programmed in "B" ages ago, and it was virtually typeless > (there was a distinction made for floating point values). I can > tell you, the only thing that was worse to debug, was assembly > language! Everything (but floats) were a word (on the Honeywell, > that was a 36-bit word). To work with strings you did procedure > calls... what a nightmare to debug. > > When C came along, it was a blessing. Why? Stronger type checking > and other "language safeguards". > > But today, C is the "B" of yesteryear. Ada is a big improvement > over C, even C++ and yes, Java. You know, I agree with you. Strong static type systems are a good thing. I tried Ada 95 and did find it more productive than C or C++ when you factor out the library advantages of C and C++. Still, I write C far more than Ada and I don't see that changing for a while, unfortunately. If you look at the newsgroups in the distribution list, you'll see that this troll was crossposted to comp.lang.functional. Many people who read that (this?) list probably wouldn't argue about your statement, but would say "so what?". Couldn't you take the next step and say Ada is now like B on account of more advanced languages like SML, Haskell, Mercury, and OCaml? Or, would you argue that type inference has deleterious effects on program readability and maintainability? Anyways, I bet someone could take a trimmed down Ada, maybe the SPARK subset, and make a pretty slick little pseudo functional language with a sophisticated type system, along the lines of what the Cyclone project at Cornell does with C. -- Brian