Re: Urgent question: malloc and ada...READ/NEW/FOLLOWUP

[gwinn@ma.ultranet.com (Joe Gwinn)]

In article <dewar.892953117@merv>, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:

> Joe says
> 
> <<Umm.  Here we go again.  No, not all developers have doctorates in
>   anything, let alone computer science, but the problems of interfacing code
>   written in different languages, or even same language but different
>   compilers, have been with us for decades.  This is an area where details
>   are excruciatingly important.>>
> 
> The idea that you need a doctorate in computer science to understand a
> programming language like Ada is peculiar. I certainly have not found
> this a necessity myself! In fact anyone with a reasonable practical
> understanding of programming language semantics can perfectly well learn
> Ada in general, and these aspects in particular. I talk by email nearly
> every day to competent application programmers who have nothing like the
> formal credentials that Joe seems to imagine as necessary. Many of them
> understand these language aspects as well as I do. The idea that you
> need special qualification to do this is definitely odd and does not
> correspond to my experience at all.

I guess I have yet to meet anybody who knows Ada well enough, and probably
never will, but life goes on.


> <<I am perplexed.  Why do you think Ada, a capable but complex language, is
>   any different?  Why do you express surprise that people have problems
>   here, and demand the evidence, as if to prepare for a federal court case?>>
> 
> I don't know why you should be perplexed. Perhaps you simply don't know Ada 95
> well enough to know that it is unique in being designed to interface
with other
> languages. For example, there is no other language of which I am aware which
> has the capability of specifying that a particular type is to be represented
> in a manner compatible with some other specific language.

You know, no language is perfect, not even Ada.  Somehow, I doubt that a
statement that people had lots of trouble interfacing C to fortran 77
would have been challenged.


> It hardly needs a federal court case to be dissatisfied with your completely
> unsubstantiated claim of difficulties in Ada 95 without a single example.
> The reason an example is useful is we want to see whether it is genuinely
> a gap or problem in Ada 95, or whether it is a matter of you not knowing
> the language well enough (a possibility since you regard Ada as complex and
> impossible to learn without a PhD in computer science :-)

You know, just listening to the newsgroup traffic for a year would give
one the idea that there might be an issue or two here.  I recall lots of
C/C++ to Ada interface questions.  Do you think there might be a pattern
in all those unsubstantiated postings?


> <<Also, I don't know that having the entire list in detail would help
>   people, because they will have a different combination of languages and
>   compilers.  What's more useful is the advice to focus on the interface
>   details in your particular setup, because history has shown this area to
>   be a rich source of trouble.>>
> 
> Absolutely, that is why the design of Ada 95 goes to such considerable
> extents to provide specific features to solve these problems.

It takes two to tango.  One could have the problem even if Ada were
perfect in every way, which it's not, no more than any other language of
similar complexity.  Anyway, one has at least two languages involved in
such interfaces.

 
> <<I have to wonder if I will ever be able to provide enough details to
>   satisfy you.  Past history isn't encouraging.>>
> 
> I agree, it has been VERY hard to get you to discuss specific language
> issues in the past. You have always been more comfortable at the general
> "there are lots of problems, I know, I have been there" level. Fine, but
> that deadends the conversation if we don't have a specific example. So
> please contradict past history and cough up an example. Since you are now
> trying to find the single example that most supports your case from a
> supposedly long list, this should not be an unreasonable request!

As I said, I will dig up a list, probably next week.

It should by now be obvious that I am a system architect and manager, and
no longer write much code, so I don't usually know the details of problems
to the level I did when I wrote all the code, which seems to be the level
you wish.  Just because I report problems that others in my shop have
experienced, and so do not myself know all details, does not mean that the
problems didn't happen, or that they aren't serious.  In fact, I only hear
of the serious problems.  

Nor does it mean that certain patterns don't become obvious after decades
in the business.  It's time emough to see thinks rise up and then go to
smoke and ashes a few times over.

By the way, coders don't choose languages, managers do.


Joe Gwinn