Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

["J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>]

On 4/23/2010 3:29 AM, robin wrote:
> "Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz"<spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid>  wrote in message
> news:4bc6e42f$2$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
> | In<4bc5a413$0$78577$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/14/2010
> |   at 07:27 PM, "robin"<robin51@dodo.com.au>  said:
> |
> |>That's irrelevant.
> |
> | The dispute is about the development of algorithms,
>
> No it isn't.
> But if you want original development, try
> 1. Compilers, typically first written in 1950s in machine code.

I think that's a very solid case--there was no need for such a thing 
before there was machine code so there was no incentive for anybody to 
even look for the necessary algorithms, although some of the pieces may 
have had prior development, and you can't use a high level language 
until you have a working compiler for it (although I understand that in 
some cases the "compiler" was a grad student).

> 2. Nuclear codes.

Were the algorithms they used developed to be used on computers or were 
they computer implementations of the hand and card-machine algorithms 
that were used during the development of the bomb?  Los Alamos didn't 
have a mechanical computer you know--"computer" at Los Alamos was a job 
title--but they did have a room full of punch-card machines and a group 
of teenagers doing amazing things with them.

> 3. Computer-generated music

Don't know anything about that.

> 4. Random number generation.

How were random numbers generated before computers? Did they not have 
viable algorithms for the purpose?
>
> | not about their
> | transcription. The question of whether Ada actually developed the
> | Fibonacci algorithm is highly relevant to that question.
>
> That's complerely irrelevant.
>
>