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=-2.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-02-26 16:39:04 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!fr.usenet-edu.net!usenet-edu.net!enst.fr!not-for-mail From: "Robert C. Leif" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: RE: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died (was): 64 bit addressing and OOP Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 16:38:37 -0800 Organization: ENST, France Message-ID: Reply-To: "comp.lang.ada mail to news gateway" NNTP-Posting-Host: marvin.enst.fr Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: avanie.enst.fr 1046306343 59414 137.194.161.2 (27 Feb 2003 00:39:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@enst.fr NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 00:39:03 +0000 (UTC) To: "'comp.lang.ada mail to news gateway'" Return-Path: X-Envelope-From: rleif@rleif.com X-Envelope-To: X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.4510 In-Reply-To: X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Importance: Normal X-BeenThere: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1 Precedence: list List-Id: comp.lang.ada mail to news gateway List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:34638 Date: 2003-02-26T16:38:37-08:00 DoD could have made Ada if they had only forbidden its use by the public. Universities would then have been motivated to teach it. Bob Leif -----Original Message----- From: Kent Paul Dolan [mailto:xanthian@well.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 2:49 PM To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Subject: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died (was): 64 bit addressing and OOP Richard Riehle wrote: > The Ada mandate was poorly managed by the DoD. Talk about praising with faint damnation. They couldn't have done worse by avowedly working against adoption of Ada. Creating an unenforced underfunded mandate only accomplished sowing confusion and a burning desire to find a way around the rules, which all services but the USMC then took up as the latest "fun frustrating feeble feckless DoD management by paid professional footdragging" game. Which DoD lost to its component parts. > The language is structured around a few simple principles. Which seem to be "simple" only in the minds of computer language theorists, not in the minds of us mere programmers, to whom the reasons for which these principles are meritorious and why they should govern our lives are still quite convincingly opaque. > Some of those principles are more rigorously defined in > Ada than in other languages. If only the same rigor had been applied to furnishing _readable explanations_ of these principles, in self-contained, self-standing "why, not merely what" style, in words clear enough to have been penned by Hemmingway, the pain and suffering of programmers new to Ada might be much diminished. > One principle, separation of scope from visibility, is so > different that even Ada programmers have difficulty with > it at first. Last time I checked by comp.lang.ada [which the mannerless arrogance of certain posters there toward newbies finally made unstomachable], this issue still seemed to consume the bulk of the newsgroup. Are the questions now settled, and is there somewhere available an online tutorial explaining the issues clearly enough for a sixth grader to read and use? > Once they stop fighting it and understand it, the rest of > the language falls into place. Much like certain editors better not brought up again, or lots of other software cobbling tools, for that matter. xanthian.