Re: Side-effect arithmetic again [was: Ada ... in embedded systems]

[adaworks@netcom.com (AdaWorks)]

John G. Volan (John_Volan@ccmail.dayton.saic.com) wrote:
 
 [snip, snip, snip]

: ...  (1) yes, you're right, it does take more than just a
: working knowledge of English to fully understand an Ada program, or at
: least to understand it enough to do maintenance on it; 

  One of the better reasons to use C.  One could imagine coding C in
  Japanese using Kanji. The brevity of C notation makes it representable
  in the language symbols of Arabic, Thai, Greek, Sanskrit, Burmese,
  Hebrew, Russian, and others that do not derive from some variant 
  of the Western European alphabet.  

  I wonder if the same thing can the same be said of Eiffel, Ada, Smalltalk, 
  etc?  It seems to me that most of the high-order programming 
  languages are heavily dependent on a Euro-centric alphabet whereas
  the underlying programing ideas are not. Certainly, Ada has improved 
  with regard to its internationalization.  However, a more symbolic
  language - a universal assembler - such as C comes closer to the 
  culture-independent model that makes complex  mathematical notations
  comphrehensible in academic institutions all over this tiny planet, 
  from Cambodia to Sweden, from Iceland to Osaka.

  My copies of the Japanese and Chinese Ada Reference Manual show quite
  clearly that Ada 83 was somewhat provincial. Although the
  explanatory text for each manual is in the language of the culture, the 
  Ada program examples are in English.  

  Richard Riehle
  adaworks@netcom.com



  

  
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