Re: Misconception about Ada?

[randhol+abuse@pvv.org (Preben Randhol)]

On 11 Feb 2001 18:30:30 -0500, Robert Deininger wrote:
>Knowing nothing more about this author than I learned by skimming the
>chapter, I suspect it would be a waste of time to discuss Ada with him.  I
>guess he doesn't have a clue about Ada, but he thinks he knows quite a bit.
> Throwing all these languages in the same basket is silly.

It is the Open Source evangelist Eric Steven Raymond. But he does not
seem have the knowlegde he claims when it comes to computer languages.
If you look at the Jargon File you will find that he has less opinions
about Ada, but they seem all to be based on either Ada 83 or hear-say.
:-(

>I guess Ada is not suitable for the sort of programming he cares about:

Yes it is, but I believe he has not tried it. An Ada version of
fetchmail would not be a bad idea.

>"In 1996 a widely-reported and plausible estimate of community sizes held
>that for every Python hacker there were five Tcl hackers and twelve Perl
>hackers. "

Which does not say much. I mean there is no logic in the notion that the
majority is right. They seldom are...

>Speak up, Ada hackers!  

Which is another point. The hacker definition is hopeless in the sense
that all media use it for cracker, so people who do not know more than
what the media writes thinks linux and the like are done buy a bunch of
criminals :-( Anyway one can argue, from the definition of a hacker,
that a cracker is a hacker that is good at breaking into systems.

-- 
Preben Randhol ------------------- http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/ --
                 �For me, Ada95 puts back the joy in programming.�