Re: Ada student homework ?

[Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam (Larry Kilgallen)]

In article <3A09416E.4C9BE1C8@cadwin.com>, Nicolas Brunot <n.brunot@cadwin.com> writes:
> I don't think you have any lessons to give to students which are not
> yours.
> Most of the time, Ada lessons are given to students old enough to be
> responsible for their behavior.

In society in general, adults do not always act responsibly,
so age is no automatic guarantee.  (Likewise, we should not
discriminate against younger people solely on the basis of
age.)

> The main point here is how Ada programmers are considered by non Ada
> programmers.
> If Ada wants to be promoted, some of Ada programmers should try to
> consider what the real world looks like.
> The purpose of comp.lang.ada is in my opinion not to rule the world and
> decide what is wrong or not.
> More than that, this shows Ada as a language of scholar people judging
> the rest of the world, and not as an efficient language for software
> industry.

Some of us are not "scholars" in any sense of the word.  While
I am an Ada fan/zealot/fanatic, it is not just the language as
defined in the standard that attracts me, but the _spirit_ of
striving for correctness.  It is possible to write Fortran* in
any language, goes the saying.  If this newsgroup were devoted
to finding new ways to compete with C's "obscure coding" contests,
I would not be participating.

Some of the people in this newsgroup are involved in safety
critical software.  My efforts are much more mundane, so for
personal purposes I am interested in the highest quality Ada
programming just so ordinary computer programs do not fail.
But when I am not working and I take a plane, train or
medical treatment, I have a sudden stake in all that
safety-critical stuff being done right.

I hope there are pockets of people doing computer-irrelevant
work with concerns for doing the job right similar to those
in this group. 

Larry Kilgallen

* If people choose to write Fortran they should do it honestly,
  using a Fortran compiler.