Re: Language design by by committee ( was Re: Try J# ( was Re: J# is there ))

[Dale Stanbrough <dale@cs.rmit.edu.au>]

Israel Raj T <israelrt@optushome.com.au> wrote:

Dale Stanbrough wrote:
> >Now repeat after me...
> >   Ada was not designed by a committee.
> >   Ada was not designed by a committee.
> >   Ada was not designed by a committee.
> 
> Yes, you are absolutely right Dale....
> 
> At least 21 people and TWO committees were involved.
> 
> "In 1975 the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) established a   A High
> Order Language Working Group (HOLWG) ...to formulate the DoD
> requirements for high order languages . The requirements were widely
> distributed for comment throughout the military and civil communities,
> producing successively more refined versions from Strawman through
> Woodenman, Tinman, Ironman, and finally Steelman."
> http://www.adahome.com/History/Steelman/steeltab.htm

Yes, this was the requirements section.

> "A high-order language working group (HOLWG) was formed with Whitaker
> as chairman. Other representatives included Cmdr. Jack Cooper, the
> Navy representative (along with Bernie Zempolich and Robert Kahane),
> Bill Carlson of ARPA, Maj. Tom Jarrell of the Air Force, Paul Cohen of
> the Defense Communications Agency (DCA), Lt. Col. Schamber of the
> Marine Corps, and Maj. Breault of the Army."
> http://www.adapower.com/adafaq.htm


...and what was the structure of the group. Perhaps it was a committee,
perhaps Col. Whitaker had veto over all decisions (i personally don't
know).


> "The Ada design team was led by Jean D. Ichbiah and has included
> Berned Krieg-Bruechner,  Brain A. Wichmann, Henry F. Ledgard,
> Jean-Cluade Heliard, Jean-Loup Gailly, Jean-Ryanmond  Abrial, John G.
> P. Barnes, Mike Woodger, Olivier Roubine, Paul N. Hilfinger, and
> Robert Firth. "
> http://archive.adaic.com/pol-hist/history/histada.txt


Jean Ichbiah definately did have the power to overrule, and examples
of this being used have been posted to the Ada newsgroup in the past.
   
  
> As for the use of the word "committee":
> 
> "Dear Lord Lytton 
> [...]
> This effort will shortly reach its climax with the publication of the
> language design in April 1979.  Until now, the language has not had a
> distinctive name, and the steering committee of the project has been
> open to suggestions for such a name.  The only serious contender, and
> one the committee would like to adopt, is Ada - in honour of Countess
> Lovelace. "
> http://archive.adaic.com/pol-hist/history/holwg-93/3.htm

This was still in the requirements phase.

> As for protests that Steelman was not a design document but was merely
> a requirements document, here is a brief extract from Steelman:
> 
[examples of requirements that look suspiciously like design removed]

I went to the website that you specified, and also found the following...


13E. Translator Characteristics. Translators for the language will be 
written in the language and will be able to produce code for a variety 
of object machines. The machine independent parts of translators should 
be separate from code generators. Although it is desirable, translators 
need not be able to execute on every object machine. The internal 
characteristics of the translator (i.e., the translation method) shall 
not be specified by the language definition or standards.


which was a bizzare requirement, yet it was clearly not followed
by a lot of implementors, nor did it find it's way into the
final design. Clearly the -design- team removed it from consideration.
Perhaps the team considered all of the requirements, and removed
those that they didn't like, and kept those they did (once again
I don't know the process that was followed - i suspect we need
a more authoriatative history than one that is presumed by looking
through some of the available documentation).

What I see as the implicit assumption in the original posting
that the design team was a committee (where committee is being
used in the pejorative sense) is one that cannot be sustained
on the available evidence. Do you have any more evidence from
the people involved in the design process that indicates that
it was a mish mash of competing interests, rather than being
reasonably well thought out?

BTW more than a couple of people involved does not equal bad
design. The Java API had thread.stop, thread.resume right from
the word go; anybody familiar with threading research would have
told you they are not good routines to have.

Dale