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: 103376,703c4f68db81387d X-Google-Thread: 109fba,703c4f68db81387d X-Google-Thread: 115aec,703c4f68db81387d X-Google-Thread: f43e6,703c4f68db81387d X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,gid109fba,gid115aec,gidf43e6,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local01.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.megapath.net!news.megapath.net.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 16:24:05 -0600 From: "Randy Brukardt" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c++,comp.realtime,comp.software-eng References: <4229bad9$0$1019$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au> <1110032222.447846.167060@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <871xau9nlh.fsf@insalien.org> <3SjWd.103128$Vf.3969241@news000.worldonline.dk> <87r7iu85lf.fsf@insalien.org> <87is4598pm.fsf@insalien.org> <1110054476.533590@athnrd02> <1110059861.560004@athnrd02> <87wtsl7jts.fsf@insalien.org> <1110264816.858853.54020@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> <1110336185.044049.21920@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> <1110378745.155345.221890@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Teaching new tricks to an old dog (C++ -->Ada) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 16:26:16 -0600 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4927.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4927.1200 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.32.209.38 X-Trace: sv3-Bgo62WzT8K6KjUuVoRcWe5u4kg4zGCsjQAv9SAeOGKe5/TXOc36bNV5x8PPrK/pjlMOHyMoj3hmfPw0!gtz2L9pPehphgmapK9s8vwLWKFyVvAdG3YMnqbXdpldWuZwZgJoPyqmMP2ADXfVLBsUbwCcxaoEr X-Complaints-To: abuse@megapath.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@megapath.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.32 Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:8977 comp.lang.c++:44864 comp.realtime:1153 comp.software-eng:4712 Date: 2005-03-09T16:26:16-06:00 List-Id: "Jerry Coffin" wrote in message news:1110378745.155345.221890@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... ... > To be both professional and efficient, how about if we just paste in > the entire text of the LRM before each statement? That would leave > nobody room for _any_ doubt about what the code means. Oh...well, > you're probably right: to go with, we'd better paste in the entire text > of a real dictionary, and (just in case) a complete set of books > teaching how to read English. The people you're obviously targeting as > reading the code undoubtedly need that -- after all, every word in > "Language Reference Manual" has three whole syllables! That's certainly the process it takes to write a language standard; you have to decide what every word means, or even specify the dictionary to use if the word isn't defined in the standard. Ada programmers do care about such things. It's not unusual to put a reference to the standard (or nowdays, a link to the standard) into comments of Ada code. There is an art to how much needs to be explicit, but if in doubt (and when it comes to non-obvious language rules like precidence or visibility, it's always in doubt), it is always better to err on the side of explicitness. >Ada advocate: "The world WOULD be better if you used Ada." And the world IS better because of the various rock solid programs I wrote in Ada. I suspect that many of the people in comp.lang.ada could and would say the same. OTOH, there is a lot of "cool" code out there that crashes systems and adds security holes. Those things are much less likely in Ada code (certainly not impossible, of course, especially since we have to sit on top of C-based OSes). Randy Brukardt It's not unusual