From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,cbb5b0d14f503195 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!news4.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newscon06.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.net!newsmst01b.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr29.news.prodigy.net.POSTED!4988f22a!not-for-mail From: Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: Subject: Re: Working with incompetent adaists / unsafe typing war story X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1437 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1441 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 70.134.129.23 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: newssvr29.news.prodigy.net 1140134221 ST000 70.134.129.23 (Thu, 16 Feb 2006 18:57:01 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 18:57:01 EST Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com X-UserInfo1: TSUGW^WETZSMB_DX]BCBNWX@RJ_XPDLMN@GZ_GYO^RR@ETUCCNSKQFCY@TXDX_WHSVB]ZEJLSNY\^J[CUVSA_QLFC^RQHUPH[P[NRWCCMLSNPOD_ESALHUK@TDFUZHBLJ\XGKL^NXA\EVHSP[D_C^B_^JCX^W]CHBAX]POG@SSAZQ\LE[DCNMUPG_VSC@VJM Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 23:57:01 GMT Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:2921 Date: 2006-02-16T23:57:01+00:00 List-Id: "Anonymous Coward" wrote in message news:VeRIf.30362$3V4.15715@trnddc06... > > Do you folks encounter this frequently? And what's the solution? > Management can never appreciate the benefits of concepts like type > safety. Strong typing is incorrectly viewed as "academic" and counter > to progress. > I was at an Ada conference many years ago, before the end of the mandate, and visiting the booth of a well-known CASE tool publisher. They began to demonstrate the tool for me. At one point the person doing the demonstration said something such as, "Well let's get rid of these limited private types since they cannot be used for anything useful." He then continued with his demonstration of the tool. I was horrified, but decided to remain polite. It would have been no good to try to educate him to the contrary. >From an engineering perspective (although not from a programmer's point-of-view) it is quite valuable that we cannot overload the assignment operation and do other little things that are easy in languages without the equivalent of limited private. Yes, to do assignment on a limited type we must create a procedure, but that is not a bad thing -- it is a good thing. One of my early mentors in Ada, Doug Bryan, once said, "Until you understand 'limited' you don't understand Ada." I eventually learned just how right he was. With Ada, we are not trying to appeal to the programmer. Rather, we are concerned with good engineering practice. Ada continues to be the best language available when one is focused on engineering rather than programming. Richard Riehle