Re: Misconception about Ada?

[Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com>]

In article <Pine.BSF.4.21.0102130844300.1575-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>,
Brian
Rogoff says...
>
>On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Ted Dennison wrote:
>> Interesting
difference. I assume you picked this up from your Computer
>> Science
department?
>
>I was a Math guy. Hacking was part of the school's history and
culture. Of

Ahh. So we are still back to the possiblity that the terminology
difference
stems from a CS vs. non-CS background. I was hoping to hear from CS
people who
learned it as a postitive term, or perhaps non-CS people who
didn't.

>Ever play speed chess? It's rather different from a regular chess
game

Actually, the way I play chess is an excellent example. You can consider
me sort
of a "chess hacker", in my sense of the word "hacker". I play each move
as its
own game, with no overriding plan (and no idea how to make one). As a
result,
I'm incapable of beating anyone who's any good. In particular:
  o  I
walk right into traps.
  o  My position after the first few moves is always a
complete mess.
  o  I take forever to perform a move.
  o  For someone who knows
what they are doing, I'm no fun to play with.

>programming is even more
valuable in rapid development. Once you've got
>the basics of Ada down, it's
pretty fast to write since you don't debug as
>much as in C.

I'd agree with
that. However, even for "rapid development", you have to sit down
first and
figure out what you are trying to do and roughly how you want to try
to get
there. If you just sit down at a GUI-builder and start throwing controls
up on
the screen, you'll take 3 times a long to get anywhere, and it probably
won't be
a pleasant place when you get there.



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