Re: Another ammunition

[als@usenet.thangorodrim.de (Alexander Schreiber)]

AG <ang@xtra.co.nz> wrote:
>> Jean-Pierre Rosen <rosen@adalog.fr> wrote:
>
>> -ansi -Wall -pedantic -Wtraditional -Wpointer-arith -Wshadow
>> -Wwrite-strings -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wcast-qual
>> -Waggregate-return -Wmissing-declarations -Wnested-externs -Winline
>> -Werror -W
>
>> Forces you to fix the simple bugs to even get your code to compile
>> (leaving you to be more creative in creating tricky logic bugs).
>
>That's an interesting example. All those switches needed
>to force you to "fix the simple bugs"?

"simple bugs" == stuff the compiler can find, like trying to write into
constants, type mismatches (returning ints but expecting floats), tyops
(like a forgotten ";") and the like. Still leaves you free to add buffer
overruns, off-by-one errors and so on to your hearts content ;-)

>How many people
>would you think would bother with all the switches?
>And not make a mistake of omitting one?

Very few. I've seen enough projects that simply dump stdout and stderr
of the compiler into /dev/null during the compile stage - probably to
keep the user installing this software from seeing gcc complain about
the ugly C he is fed.

The long list of compiler switches above came from a programming
assignment I once did - I tried to force gcc into the most anal
retentive mode possible to avoid leaving stupid and simple coding errors
in the project. It helped.

>Even more importantly, how do you know *you* haven't
>missed one or two? Sure, there are manuals (or are there?
>or are the manuals complete and up to date? etc etc) but
>even then, setting up all those switches is surely subject
>to human error. Isn't it better to just have all of that built
>right into the language which compiler is required to enforce?

I'm not trying to argue that you should drop Ada and use C instead -
there are more than enough misguided zealots of this kind already
around. IMHO, the digital world would most likely be a slightly safer
place if more software were written in Ada instead of C (and some
obnoxious software wouldn't be written at all - good riddance).

For me, Ada is an interesting and powerful language - but I still need
to find the time to do more than write the canonical "Hello world" in
Ada.

Regards,
      Alex.
-- 
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
 looks like work."                                      -- Thomas A. Edison