Re: Interesting article on ARG work

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"Dan'l Miller" <optikos@verizon.net> wrote in message 
news:80db2d05-744f-4201-ba1b-4436f8040491@googlegroups.com...
On Saturday, April 7, 2018 at 5:11:35 AM UTC-5, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>> Yes, this is important but I think this could be resolved, e.g. by
>> compiling conditionals into corresponding null-effect constructs.

>Yeah, right.  This is an artificially contrived "problem" that is in fact
>not extant in reality.  Simply put the @ symbols in front of the .entire.
>construct to elide:  the entire else branch.
>
>    if Foo then
>           Bar;
>@ else
>@        Internal_Error;
>    endif;

Of course the fix is easy. But your definition of "artificially contrived" 
is pretty strange -- this is a mistake I make literally every week that I 
work on Janus/Ada. (I compile it both ways periodically to detect such 
mistakes, there's always several each time.)

The existence of an easy work-around has no effect on the human-factors part 
of this -- if there is an easy way to make a mistake, it will be made (and 
frequently).

Case in point: I've been using this feature regularly for 38+ years, I'm 
well aware of this concern, and I *still* make it regularly. (I do often see 
the mistake before compiling, but going back to fix it is just an extra 
step.)That's pretty much the definition of dangerous language design.

                      Randy.