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From: "Chad R. Meiners" <crmeiners@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: [Spark] Arrays of Strings
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 14:47:47 -0400
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"Marin David Condic" <mcondic.auntie.spam@acm.org> wrote in message
news:b76b3a$slo$1@slb9.atl.mindspring.net...
> I can agree with Hyman's point to some extent. Trying to eliminate all
> possible sources of errors via language design is not going to work and
only
> succeeds in making the language less useful in solving problems. (Sort of
> like trying to teach a pig to dance - it doesn't work and only succeeds in
> annoying the pig. :-)

If this was Hyman's point, then it one that most people that deal with
formal methods agree with.  Almost all the people that deal with formal
methods understand logic and expressiblity; thus they are not going to
intentional try to eliminate all sources of errors via language design.
That is simple, "My language allow nothing to be expressed".  Of course you
can also go to the opposite extreme, "All things are expressions of my
language".  Both language are useless.   The challenge with formal methods
is to get the balance right with reguards to requirments, specifications and
finally implementations.  In my profesional opinion (formal methods are the
focus of my graduate studies), I think that Spark demonstrates a very good
sense of balance in this respect.