Re: Imperialism (OT) (Was: No call for Ada)

["Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@comcast.net>]

Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> "Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@comcast.net> writes:
> 
>>Sure in Austria there is a consistent world view:  Austrian beer is
>>better than any other beer, including German. ;-)
> 
> 
> Surely you haven't tasted Belgian beer.  Next time you're in Brussels,
> give me a call and I'll treat you to some :)

You miss my point, I think there are good German and Austrian beers. 
But the one thing that the Austrians seem to agree on is that Austrian 
beers are better than German beers.  (I am not an Austrian, I am an 
American, and quite willing to admit that most American beer is not good 
enough to feed to the pigs--or to people. ;-)

> BTW, Jean Ichbiah is French and he led the origigal Green (then Ada)
> design team.  Quite a good ilustration of your point.

I have to tell you a story.  At an ARG meeting in Ada 83 days we were 
discussing an issue and there seemed to be no strong opinion either way. 
  The RM was ambiguous, and we needed to have all compilers do it the 
same way, but right then the split was about even between the two 
interpretations.

Jean Ichbiah said:  "We are an ISO group and the French standard has 
equal standing with the English version."  So he pulled out his copy of 
the French standard and read the offending paragraph.  He then turned to 
Mike Woodger who did most of the translation work, and congratulated him 
for translating the ambiguity exactly.

Out came the German, Danish, and a few other standards.  The final 
upshot was to conclude that while some took one side and others the 
opposite there was no consistant bias.  But as the discussion was going 
on with half a dozen languages being quoted, if not spoken around the 
table, John Goodenough, then the ARG chair turned to Jean Ichbiah and 
asked him to switch back to English (from French).

Jean appologized, and offered to repeat what he had said in English. 
John Goodenough said that it wasn't necessary that he thought everyone 
present had followed what he was saying. (Nods from around the table.) 
But when Jean was speaking French, he spoke too rapidly for John to keep 
up in his notetaking. ;-)

(For those who have never spoken to Jean, or never in French, his 
English has a pleasant "mid-Atlantic" accent. But his French is Parisian 
with the machine gun delivery they use there.  And when Jean gets 
excited, the delivery speed goes up!)


-- 
                                           Robert I. Eachus

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