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: fdb77,5f529c91be2ac930 X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-Thread: 11232c,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid11232c,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-05-09 09:27:04 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.airnews.net!cabal12.airnews.net!usenet From: "John R. Strohm" Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.object,comp.lang.ada,misc.misc Subject: Re: Using Ada for device drivers? (Was: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died) Date: Fri, 9 May 2003 11:14:41 -0500 Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America Message-ID: References: <9fa75d42.0304230424.10612b1a@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0304240950.45114a39@posting.google.com> <4a885870.0304291909.300765f@posting.google.com> <416273D61ACF7FEF.82C1D1AC17296926.FF0BFD4934A03813@lp.airnews.net> <9fa75d42.0305010621.55e99deb@posting.google.com> <17cd177c.0305011129.2eab5fb8@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305090536.49431321@posting.google.com> Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:63404 comp.object:63102 comp.lang.ada:37115 misc.misc:14046 Date: 2003-05-09T11:14:41-05:00 List-Id: X-A-Notice: References line has been trimed due to 512 byte limitation Abuse-Reports-To: abuse at airmail.net to report improper postings NNTP-Proxy-Relay: library1-aux.airnews.net NNTP-Posting-Time: Fri, 09 May 2003 11:24:35 -0500 (CDT) NNTP-Posting-Host: !b]\%1k-W wrote in message news:9fa75d42.0305090536.49431321@posting.google.com... > gautier_niouzes@hotmail.com (Gautier) wrote in message news:<17cd177c.0305011129.2eab5fb8@posting.google.com>... > > > You simply ignore the huge debugging time provided > > by poorly-typed languages and its effective relation to > > job safety. So what ? > > No -- having worked on reasonably large projects > in C, I can say that with professional programmers > with experience in a language like C, this > simply ceases to be an issue. *MOST* bugs > in a professional C project have nothing to do > with type safety. The bugs would have happened > in any language, because they involved logic issues. > So the advantages of a fully type-safe language > are small, perhaps 5%. And that's very easily > offset by the disadvantages (extra time, effort, > debugging for the situations that _require_ getting > around the type-safety, loss of the automatic > programmer-pruning that "hard" languages such > as C/C++ bring...) Let me see if I understand this. You WANT to predicate your systems development work, on all problems, on being able to hire only wizards who can handle the hard language, in quantity. Isn't that mostly like using only expert neurosurgeons to stitch up paper cuts? I observe that you say *MOST* bugs, not *ALL* bugs. That implies that SOME of those bugs would not have occurred in a type-safe language. My personal experience in type-safe languages are that you only RARELY have to get around the type system, and the mere existence of the hackarounds warns the maintenance programmer that something is going on here. Of course, you've probably NEVER had to contemplate doing maintenance on code that was written ten years ago, much less code that might have been written before you were born.