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: 11232c,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid11232c,public X-Google-Thread: fdb77,5f529c91be2ac930 X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-02-26 14:48:55 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: xanthian@well.com (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.object,comp.lang.ada,misc.misc Subject: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died (was): 64 bit addressing and OOP Date: 26 Feb 2003 14:48:54 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: References: <3E4E8F8C.9C096985@adaworks.com> <9fa75d42.0302250710.5549baaf@posting.google.com> <3E5C7033.BD5DC462@adaworks.com> <9fa75d42.0302260618.7506cba7@posting.google.com> <3E5CF5C6.84822F57@adaworks.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.8.249.134 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1046299735 12771 127.0.0.1 (26 Feb 2003 22:48:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Feb 2003 22:48:55 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:59375 comp.object:58417 comp.lang.ada:34630 misc.misc:12157 Date: 2003-02-26T22:48:55+00:00 List-Id: Richard Riehle wrote: > The Ada mandate was poorly managed by the DoD. Talk about praising with faint damnation. They couldn't have done worse by avowedly working against adoption of Ada. Creating an unenforced underfunded mandate only accomplished sowing confusion and a burning desire to find a way around the rules, which all services but the USMC then took up as the latest "fun frustrating feeble feckless DoD management by paid professional footdragging" game. Which DoD lost to its component parts. > The language is structured around a few simple principles. Which seem to be "simple" only in the minds of computer language theorists, not in the minds of us mere programmers, to whom the reasons for which these principles are meritorious and why they should govern our lives are still quite convincingly opaque. > Some of those principles are more rigorously defined in > Ada than in other languages. If only the same rigor had been applied to furnishing _readable explanations_ of these principles, in self-contained, self-standing "why, not merely what" style, in words clear enough to have been penned by Hemmingway, the pain and suffering of programmers new to Ada might be much diminished. > One principle, separation of scope from visibility, is so > different that even Ada programmers have difficulty with > it at first. Last time I checked by comp.lang.ada [which the mannerless arrogance of certain posters there toward newbies finally made unstomachable], this issue still seemed to consume the bulk of the newsgroup. Are the questions now settled, and is there somewhere available an online tutorial explaining the issues clearly enough for a sixth grader to read and use? > Once they stop fighting it and understand it, the rest of > the language falls into place. Much like certain editors better not brought up again, or lots of other software cobbling tools, for that matter. xanthian.