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From: Dr Chaos <mbkennelSPAMBEGONE@NOSPAMyahoo.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.object,comp.lang.ada,misc.misc
Subject: Re: Using Ada for device drivers? (Was: the Ada mandate,
 and why it collapsed and died)
Followup-To: comp.lang.java.advocacy
Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 03:25:49 +0000 (UTC)
Organization: Univ of Calif San Diego
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On 12 May 2003 06:43:34 -0700, soft-eng <softeng3456@netscape.net> wrote:
> Dr Chaos <mbkennelSPAMBEGONE@NOSPAMyahoo.com> wrote in message news:<slrnbbof6r.6ep.mbkennelSPAMBEGONE@lyapunov.ucsd.edu>...
> 
>> Here is one key example.  VMS didn't have a shell where actual
>> ordinary users could write programs which functioned like the built in
>> ones.  It was "RUN MY_USER_PROGRAM" versus the huge hairball of "SHOW
>> THIS/THAT" or "SET THIS TO THAT".
>> 
>> If you wanted to have your own software work like that it was a huge
>> rigamarole poring through one of the 20 or 30 orange covered
>> notebooks.
>> 
>> Unix had argc and argv, and a simple library that you didn't even
>> need to use if you didn't want to.
>> 
>> It was like Alexander cutting the Gordian knot. 
>> 
>> DCL was completely cognitively opaque.  What exactly was it doing, what
>> programs is it running when?
>> 
>> Unix was dumb, and smart at the same time.
>> 
>> Simply: 
>> 
>>       Unix *felt* like freedom.  
>>       VMS didn't.
>> 
> 
> A lot of people felt the same way about C vs Pascal/Ada style languages!

With Pascal they were right: it is too constraining.

With Ada they were wrong.

>Even so,
> C *felt* like freedom.

Compared to Pascal--which was only intended as a pedagogical language---it was.

Pascal was not the only other language ever invented. 

> Because the strong type-checking of today's C-family languages
> has evolved rather than been dictated, it has had to retain
> that freedom.

that's a nice way of saying it's full of cruft.