Re: The 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture The Emperor's Old Clothes

["Pat Rogers" <progers@classwide.com>]

"Ed Falis" <efalis@attbi.com> wrote in message news:3D0B4750.90509@attbi.com...
> Ted Dennison wrote:
> > Lyle McKennot wrote:
>
> >> How about the  1980 ACM Turing Award lecture "The Emperor's Old
> >> Clothes" ?
> >
> >
> > The main problem with that is that Ada was not finalized until 1985.
> > Hoare's comments were made about a very preliminary version of the
> > language. Not only did Ada get 5 more years of development after that,
> > but it then got a major revision in 1995. So that lecture isn't at all
> > about the language we today know as Ada.
> >
>
> Further, Hoare praised Ada a few years later in the Foreword he wrote to
> an Ada textbook - anyone remember the specific book (Wegner)?


> > Lyle McKennot wrote:
>
> >> How about the  1980 ACM Turing Award lecture "The Emperor's Old
> >> Clothes" ?
<snip>
>
> Further, Hoare praised Ada a few years later in the Foreword he wrote to
> an Ada textbook - anyone remember the specific book (Wegner)?

From the foreword by C.A.R. Hoare to a book titled "Ada Language and
 Methodology" by David Watt, Brian Wichman and William Findlay, published by
Prentice-Hall International, 1987:

'I enjoyed reading the Algol 60 report; it taught me a lot about programming.'
This is the comment of a data processing manager of a major motor manufacturing
company, who had no conceivable prospect of ever using the language to program a
computer.  It is a most perceptive comment, because it describes an important
goal in the design of a new programming language: that it should be an aid in
specification, description, and design of programs, as well as in the
construction of reliable code.

This is one of the main aims in the design of the language which was later given
the name Ada.  As a result, the language incorporates many excellent structural
features which have proved their value in many precursor languages such as
Pascal and Pascal Plus.

The combination of many complex features into a single language has led to an
unfortunate delay in availability of production-quality implementations.  But
the long wait is coming to an end, and one can now look forward to a rapid and
widespread improvement in programming practice, both from those who use the
language and from those who study its concepts and structures.

I hope that this book will contribute directly to these ideals, which have
inspired many of the other books in the same series.  It continues the tradition
of the series in that it describes how the language can be used as the target of
a sound programming methodology, embracing the full life cycle of a programming
project.  It explains not just the features and details of the language, but
also their purpose and method of effective use.

The complexities and difficulties are not glossed over; they are explained
within the appropriate context, with hints on how to avoid any consequent
problems.  I hope the book will be useful, both to those who have the privilege
or obligation to use the language, and to those who have the interest and
curiosity to understand and appreciate its rationale.

---
Patrick Rogers                       Consulting and Training in:
http://www.classwide.com          Real-Time/OO Languages
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(281)648-3165                                 Software Fault Tolerance