Re: Ariane 5 Failure from 1996

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

In article <h3i2dh$1l7$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
 Nicholas Paul Collin Gloucester <Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org> wrote:

> On 2009-07-14, John B. Matthews <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> 
> |-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"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."                                                |
> |-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> 
> I do not appreciate why you would want to hear from Kevlin Henney as
> you know that he believes and writes bull. However, I was surprised
> and displeased that he was a speaker at an Ada UK event earlier this
> decade.

Well, one always hopes to learn something new. :-)

> I am also a member of the Association of C & C++ Users.

No disrespect intended to the Association or its members.

> In response to an email from me on one of our email lists, he claimed 
> that taking a precaution to protect against accidentally using = 
> instead of == is not worthwhile.

I enjoy using both Ada and Java, but I wouldn't want to do so without 
such warnings from either compiler.

> However, to be fair to him, he has treated Ada better than many other
> C++ advocates.
> 
> (I have noticed today that he coauthored something with Mordechai
> Ben-Ari. That is a surprise.)

Interesting. The paper <http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=271046> 
was a critique of the C++ subset used for high school advanced placement 
computer science testing, when the Educational Testing Service 
deprecated Pascal in 1999. It looks like the ETS moved to Java in 2004.

I always though going from Pascal to Ada would have been easier.

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