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: 103376,6ec8df5df532a28f X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news2.google.com!news3.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!wns13feed!worldnet.att.net!attbi_s21.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail From: "Jeffrey R. Carter" Organization: jrcarter at acm dot org User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5 (Windows/20051201) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: What is Delta?? References: <1147335626.779489.9240@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <2914908.GvrD7n1EFI@linux1.krischik.com> <1147952419.008146.149720@j55g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1ffb2$4471d0f7$45491254$22925@KNOLOGY.NET> In-Reply-To: <1ffb2$4471d0f7$45491254$22925@KNOLOGY.NET> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.201.97.176 X-Complaints-To: abuse@mchsi.com X-Trace: attbi_s21 1148315609 12.201.97.176 (Mon, 22 May 2006 16:33:29 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 16:33:29 GMT Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 16:33:29 GMT Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:4341 Date: 2006-05-22T16:33:29+00:00 List-Id: Marc A. Criley wrote: > > I can't say whether this his actually happened with regard to an Indian > university or some other outsourcing initiative, but I do know that > significant systems have been written in Ada in the late 90s by > programmers in the US having little or no exposure to the language prior > to the project. Not to mention the 1980s and early 1990s. > An experienced Ada programmer knows what Ada code should look like, in > terms of definitions, structures, and interactions. A system that was > dumped in my lap to port to a new OS version and compiler included the > following: > > - A set of project-standard integer types were defined for 8, 16, and 32 > bit items. _Every_ other integer type was defined as a subtype of one > of those. Totally eliminated integer type conflicts--and checking. Unfortunately, this is a fairly common practice. I find it less offensive than the design principle that most communication takes place through global variables. But what we're talking about is not just poor use of Ada; this is SW that has been designed by coders who are not competent to design SW. The construction workers are designing the bridges. -- Jeff Carter "Oh Lord, bless this thy hand grenade, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy." Monty Python and the Holy Grail 24