Re: Ariane 5 Failure from 1996

["John B. Matthews" <nospam@nospam.invalid>]

In article 
<c1a21454-44cf-4cbb-8623-136d2a8a4433@u38g2000pro.googlegroups.com>,
 Marco <prenom_nomus@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Jul 10, 11:17 am, "John B. Matthews" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> 
> > > To me the whole section on Ada sounds like a typical spiel from 
> > > someone who really doesn't know Ada and has picked up a load of 
> > > anti-Ada propaganda from a number of disparate sources.
> 
>    It doesn't sound particularly anti-Ada to me. Just anti only-one-
> language I doubt he has much experience in Ada.
> 
> > The article claims, "had the system been written in C, the disaster 
> > would probably never have happened!" That conclusion is unsupported 
> > in the article.
> 
>   Mr Henney is a respectable SW writer. I assume he meant that if it
> was written in C that more extensive testing would have occurred but 
> he should have said that or otherwise defended his statement.

He is also "an author who writes on the subject of computer programming 
in C and C++," as well as "a member of the Association of C and C++ 
Users":
 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevlin_Henney>
<http://www.two-sdg.demon.co.uk/curbralan/>

As he is a noted author, I would have liked to hear his thoughts. Too 
often, proponents of less strongly typed languages argue that some 
combination of skill, experience and discipline are as effective as Ada, 
and less expensive. This seems contradictory.

If I may extend the automotive analogy: the Ariane 5 project reused the 
ABS from a sedan in a truck without testing it in the truck. Well, 
except for the one time.

-- 
John B. Matthews
trashgod at gmail dot com
<http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews>