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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: a07f3367d7,f096ebb5dcac664d X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,public,usenet X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news4.google.com!feeder.news-service.com!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!newsfeed5.news.xs4all.nl!xs4all!news.stack.nl!aioe.org!nospam From: "John B. Matthews" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ariane 5 Failure from 1996 Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:16:01 -0400 Organization: The Wasteland Message-ID: References: <851f477d-c5a4-4c87-b930-4a47ba508579@h8g2000yqm.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ib4TTflHUauJidfWP/+Rjw.user.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.7.9 Cancel-Lock: sha1:Fmi87s83Z0NWqbkvNDs+nJG0D6U= User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.5.3b3 (Intel Mac OS X) Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:7049 Date: 2009-07-14T11:16:01-04:00 List-Id: In article , Nicholas Paul Collin Gloucester wrote: > On 2009-07-14, John B. Matthews wrote: > > |-------------------------------------------------------------------------| > |"In article | > |, | > |Marco wrote: | > | | > |> On Jul 10, 11:17??am, "John B. Matthews" 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": | > | | > | | > | | > | | > |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 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