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From: gwinn@ma.ultranet.com (Joe Gwinn)
Subject: Re: Why C++ is successful?
Date: 1998/08/12
Message-ID: <gwinn-1208982148170001@d153.dial-7.cmb.ma.ultra.net>#1/1
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References: <dewar.902415458@merv>
 <6qg3on$kjq$2@reader1.reader.news.ozemail.net> <dewar.902579285@merv>
 <6qrdn4$4ac@drn.newsguy.com> <EACHUS.98Aug12165625@spectre.mitre.org>
X-Ultra-Time: 13 Aug 1998 01:46:42 GMT
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Organization: Gwinn Instruments
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1998-08-12T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

I recall many stories like this over the decades, starting in the days
when fortran was displacing assembly, and structured programming was just
coming into vogue, and continuing to the present.  All good fun, but there
was and is a significant unstated assumption at work: These stories
implicitly assume that all programmers are equally good, leaving only
choice of language to explain the result.  In fact, programmer
productivity varies by a factor of ten to one from best to worst, and this
order of magnitude difference will swamp language effects unless one of
the languages is truely unsuited to the task, which isn't usually the
case.

So, it's at least as likely that you are a much better programmer than
that young whippersnapper, at the very least more experienced, and Ada
versus XXX had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Joe Gwinn


In article <EACHUS.98Aug12165625@spectre.mitre.org>,
eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) wrote:

> In article <6qrdn4$4ac@drn.newsguy.com> n@mail.NOSPAM writes:
> 
>   > sorry, but this is called meeting the big boss deadline. it is
>   > very frequent occurance in the modern to post-modern computing
>   > information systems age. got'a get that code out of the door fast,
>   > else the competition will do it first!
> 
>     Hmmm.  Have you ever tried doing it right the first time?  Is the
> real problem with Ada that there are too few of us old farts in the
> programming business?
> 
>     Once upon a time I used to believe those young whippersnappers who
> said they could write it in language XXX in half the time.  I remember
> the last time I allowed someone to show me how quickly he could do the
> job.  I, of course, cranked up gnat and had at it.  We both had code
> running by the end of the day, but mine was finished, bug free,
> including a test program that tested all requirements, and he still
> had a few "glitches" to deal with, and hadn't even thought about
> tests as such.
> 
> 
> --
> 
>                                         Robert I. Eachus
> 
> with Standard_Disclaimer;
> use  Standard_Disclaimer;
> function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...