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=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_40,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,751584f55705ddb7 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: adaworks@netcom.com (AdaWorks) Subject: Re: Side-effect arithmetic again [was: Ada ... in embedded systems] Date: 1996/03/31 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 145200438 sender: adaworks@netcom18.netcom.com references: <4iq4k7$1p6@fozzie.sun3.iaf.nl> <4jkfpj$jl1@dayuc.dayton.saic.com> organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-03-31T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: 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 -- richard@adaworks.com AdaWorks Software Engineering Suite 27 2555 Park Boulevard Palo Alto, CA 94306 (415) 328-1815 FAX 328-1112