Re: Impressions of Tri-Ada 97

[mheaney@ni.net (Matthew Heaney)]

In article <3472456E.65CE@ghgcorp.com>, Stanley Allen <sallen@ghgcorp.com>
wrote:

>For the benefit of those of us who didn't get a chance to
>go to Tri-Ada this year, can some who did post their 
>impressions of it?  How was the attendance?  The trade show?
>The entertainment?  The presentations?  The panels?

My favorite thing was Tuck's High Integrity Object-Oriented Programming
speech.  Earlier in the week Joyce Tokar had said that "object-oriented
programming makes the safely-critical guys really nervous," but I didn't
understand what she meant by that.  But Tuck explained it by saying that
code gets tested with a certain method call - and that by subclassing, you
can change the behavior of already-tested code (because the method call
dispatches to a different subprogram).  That's why Ada binds statically by
default - and gives the caller the choice whether to bind dynamically or
not.

Overall, I was happy with the conference, though I was disappointed by the
small turnout.  It saddens me that languages like C++ get so much fanfare,
when Ada 95 is clearly a superior language for systems programming.

I also got to hang out with Bryce Bardin a lot, and he gave me much insight
into the language by telling me about the Ada 9X design process.  All
fascinating stuff; I actually think it would make a good book.

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Matthew Heaney
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