Re: What is wrong with Ada?

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On 11 Apr 2007 16:05:30 -0700, kevin  cline wrote:

> On Apr 10, 11:31 am, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mail...@dmitry-kazakov.de>
> wrote:
>> On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:59:27 GMT, Jeffrey R. Carter wrote:
>>> Pascal Obry wrote:
>>>> Jeffrey R. Carter a �crit :
>>
>>>>> Nothing is wrong with Ada. It is a language for SW engineers. Since 98%
>>>>> of SW developers are coders, not SW engineers, 98% prefer languages for
>>>>> coders.
>>
>>>> Agreed 100%. Another way to put it, let me ask : What's wrong with
>>>> developers ? Why do they like unsafe languages ? Why do they like
>>>> fighting a language all the time ? Why do they like unreadable code ?
>>>> Why do they like to play with a debugger ? Why do they like to play
>>>> Sherlock Holmes during hours to look for a bug ? Here are the real
>>>> questions to me, again nothing wrong with Ada to me !
>>
>>> The answer is: because they're coders, not SW engineers.
>>
>>> Let's get circular.
>>
>> Let me break the circle:
>>
>> It is because SW engineering is not engineering.
> 
> You are right about that.  Other engineering disciplines apply
> physical laws to the construction of human artifacts.

They apply science. Engineering is about applying a science for solving
practical problems.

> There are no physical laws governing software.

I don't think that physical vs. spiritual plays any essential role. What
does, is the quality of the science being applied. One just cannot have
solid engineering based on CS. It is a question of maturity. A science
matures in hundreds of years. It would be silly to expect that we could
have SW engineering after just 50 years.

> Were it not for the limitations of
> human intellect, we could instantaneously produce correct, optimal
> machine code to meet any need.  Software engineering attempts to
> define practices for developing reliable software given our limited
> abilities.  It is a social science.

Yes. SW developing works much like an artistic activity or like a
scientific research or like both. It is not because people like it, however
many including myself do. It because there is no other choice (like
construction).

This in turn determines the [irresponsible] attitude of developers, their
[strange] preferences, the ways projects are [mis]managed and finally the
[awful] languages being used... (:-))

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de