Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com>]

In article <Pine.BSF.4.21.0102131213590.19846-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>,
Brian
Rogoff says...
>
>On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Ted Dennison wrote:
>
>> >Ever play
speed chess? It's rather different from a regular chess
>> game
>>
>> Actually,
the way I play chess is an excellent example. You can consider
>> me sort of a
"chess hacker", in my sense of the word "hacker".
..
>> I play each move as
its
>> own game, with no overriding plan (and no idea how to make one). As
a

>Well, the problem you're describing is that you don't know how to
play
>chess at all, except that maybe you know the rules. This isn't
analogous

*bing*bing**bing*. We have a winner! Perhaps it isn't analogous to
the term
"hacker" as you are used to it, but it is *perfectly* analogous to the
term as I
am used to it.


> > I'm incapable of beating anyone who's any good.
In particular:
>>   o  I
>> walk right into traps.
>>   o  My position after the
first few moves is always a
>> complete mess.
>>   o  I take forever to perform
a move.
>
>Why? If you don't know what you're doing you may as well move
randomly :-)
>I'd suggest picking up a book on the basic principles of chess, or
just
>give up playing. I can't imagine it would be any fun playing if I
didn't
>have a very basic grasp of the "physics" of chess. My Go knowledge
is
>unfortunately weak, and I don't know that I'll ever have the chance
to
>remedy that :-(.
>
>> >programming is even more
>> valuable in rapid
development. Once you've got
>> >the basics of Ada down, it's
>> pretty fast to
write since you don't debug as
>> >much as in C.
>>
>> I'd agree with
>> that.
However, even for "rapid development", you have to sit down
>> first and
>>
figure out what you are trying to do and roughly how you want to try
>> to
get
>> there. If you just sit down at a GUI-builder and start throwing
controls
>> up on
>> the screen, you'll take 3 times a long to get anywhere, and
it probably
>> won't be
>> a pleasant place when you get there.
>
>People with
lots of GUI experience are able to come up with decent GUIs
>for smallish apps
without a lot of up front work. In many cases that's
>sufficient.
>
>My main
point is that Ada doesn't lose to C or C++ for hacking on account
>of its strong
typing, though the lack of libraries doesn't help.
>
>-- Brian
>
>


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