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: 103376,5cb36983754f64da X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-04-20 00:59:04 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!tar-meneldur.cbb-automation.DE!not-for-mail From: Dmitry A. Kazakov Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language) Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 10:12:33 +0200 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: tar-meneldur.cbb-automation.de (212.79.194.119) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de 1082447942 7362390 I 212.79.194.119 ([77047]) X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:7351 Date: 2004-04-20T10:12:33+02:00 List-Id: On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 05:41:03 +0400 (MSD), "Alexander E. Kopilovich" wrote: >Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: > >> No difference. It is no rocket science to see if MS-Word crashes. > >But there is a difference in consequences. If you swallow a rooten food then >you probably (although not certainly) will be poisoned and fall ill, maybe >severely ill and even may die. But MS Word crash, however unpleasant, very >rarely has serious consequences. Most probably it will just annoy you for >several minutes or, perhaps, spoil some of your time - perhaps one or two >hours at most. Cases when a document - and not just any document, but an >important document was irrecoverably lost by a crash of MS Word - are very >rare, even exotic. It is up to law and judges to decide, that is the point. >> >A funny thing happened... Inadvertenly we created a good case - a proof of >> >that even a clear and unambiguous sentence may be confused if it is not >> >expected. Look, I wrote "defies" (from "defy"), not "defines"! >> > >> >I wrote it twice, and this was exactly what I meant, but nevertheless you >> >either overlooked the absence of "n" in this word or decided that this were >> >just typos, in both cases. After that you naturally had no chance to follow >> >the logic of the text. And even after second iteration you appear unable >> >either to recognize the meaning of that word or to believe that your opponent >> >could say such a strange thing. >> > >> >Well, I agree that this was an accident - two perfectly legal sentences with >> >very different, almost opposite meaning happened to be in dangerous lexical >> >proximity; and the situation was aggravated by the fact that the language of >> >dialogue was not native for both speakers involved. >> > >> >It is too hard to prevent *all* significant errors -;) >> >> Sorry, I just could not imagine how Ada can defy general notion of >> software. > >But could you imagine how Ada can DEFINE general notion of software? >I must confess that this is unimaginable for me - how any programming language >can DEFINE general notion of software. Any language defines the subject of talking. >Actually I think that you was ready >to tolerate DEFINE there simply because it has some positive character in the >context, that is, hints to some positive quality of Ada. No, because any programming language, Ada, C++, etc define, form, influence the notion of software. >Well, I'll explain how Ada DEFIES general notion of software. Ada does that >in two ways: > >First, Ada expects dealing with detailed specifics of the problem, and detests >generalized approaches that ignore that specifics without prior consideration. Please elaborate this. If you mean generic programming then Ada supports it by having both generics and class-wides. >Second, Ada does not recognize software as an application domain that has its >own specifics - domain-specific features, primitives and structures. (The fact >that Ada somehow recognizes several other languages is largely irrelevant to >the issue.) I don't understand this. Should it mean that, say, ClearCase cannot be written in Ada? >This is current situation. The first "way of defying" is fundamental for Ada. >It can't be betrayed without committing suicide... or at least losing >personality. But the second one can be changed in some future. > >> >> What makes you to think that the current level of error-prevention is so >> >> high that the next step would cost as much as the space-shuttle program? It >> >> is just guessing, a far from reality one. >> > >> >Experience... not just my own experience, but experience of 20th century. >> >When you are trying to increase the level of error-prevention in large scale >> >then you have to worry very much about not increasing the level of >> >progress-prevention and the level of diversity-prevention. In 20th century >> >we have several examples - some very famous, some less known, but nevertheless >> >quite substantial, where too strong attitude towards error-prevention (without >> >worrying about side-effects) was a major contributing factor for sound >> >catastrophes. That is, the achieved good level of error-prevention made the >> >final catastrophes much more sound. >> >> Stop, first you tell us that the experience of making the food >> producers liable is not applicable for the software. Now you tell that >> the experience in error-prevention as the major brake of the progress >> (in avionics? paper-fasteners?) is. Isn't it a bit selective? > >As for "selective" - yes, certainly selective, with a reason for each case. >With all my admiration for Euclid, we do not live in Euclidian space, reality >is not governed by finite number of Euclidian axioms, so we shouldn't make >general and absolute statements about reality, and must be selective... >according to our abilities for that. OK, I see, you would enjoy experimental software dealing with your bank account, controlling the nuclear reactor 30 miles away, managing the air bag in your car. I do not buy it. Sorry, but I do not see any progress in real-time controllers sending and receiving E-mails (a real story). -- Regards, Dmitry Kazakov www.dmitry-kazakov.de