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From: Richard Riehle <rriehle@nunic.nu.edu>
Subject: Re: Ada naming conventions?
Date: 1996/05/08
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.92.960508143224.6521B-100000@nunic.nu.edu>#1/1
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organization: National University, San Diego
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Date: 1996-05-08T00:00:00+00:00
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On 28 Apr 1996, Robert Dewar wrote:

> Paul said
>
> "I agree fully with Bob and Ken , SPC guide is a must have/must follow
> guide to such things."
>
> Fine, just so long as "must follow" means "must follow most of the time
> when appropriate". These are after all guidelines and not absolute rules.
> Often turning guidelines into absolute rules makes them harmful instead
> of helpful. Of course this does not apply to simple layout rules, but the
> SPC guide goes far beyond that.

  This is one of the rare occasions where I am in full agreement with
  the emminent Dr. Dewar.

  In a 1964 issue of THINK Magazine, an IBM publication, some anonymous
  person on the editorial staff wrote, "The last act of a dying
  organization is to enlarge the rule book."  Guidelines such as those
  in the Ada Quality and Style Guide are useful as long as they are
  not treated as "revealed truth," and kill the effectivness of the
  solution being sought.

  Someone in one of my Ada classes for a defense contractor once asked,
  "Why is it that the people who make up new rules for programmers are
  people who no longer write programs?

  Richard Riehle