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: 103376,21960280f1d61e84 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: How come Ada isn't more popular? References: <1169531612.200010.153120@38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <20070123211651.c0d43695.tero.koskinen@iki.fi> <87zm89tpk7.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <4q4pqgmdwo.fsf@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de> <1169719988.972296.121430@a75g2000cwd.googlegroups.com> <4iauh.1157694$084.1040745@attbi_s22> From: Markus E Leypold Organization: N/A Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:26:34 +0100 Message-ID: User-Agent: Some cool user agent (SCUG) Cancel-Lock: sha1:hBZbMvSkfMmOvMbQeBxkdYe58OA= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii NNTP-Posting-Host: 88.72.249.33 X-Trace: news.arcor-ip.de 1169767315 88.72.249.33 (26 Jan 2007 00:21:55 +0200) X-Complaints-To: abuse@arcor-ip.de Path: g2news2.google.com!news2.google.com!news4.google.com!news.glorb.com!peer1.news.newnet.co.uk!newsfeed.freenet.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.arcor-ip.de!news.arcor-ip.de!not-for-mail Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:8577 Date: 2007-01-26T00:26:34+01:00 List-Id: "Jeffrey R. Carter" writes: > Harald Korneliussen wrote: >> Anyway, I think individuals are less important than culture. You >> could >> read this straight out of the wikipedia page for C (until I changed it >> slightly ...): "the safe, effective use of C requires more programmer >> skill, experience, effort, and attention to detail than is required for >> some other programming languages." So if you use C, that means you are >> skilled, experienced and attentive, by some people's logic. It's a >> macho thing, "If you can't handle the power, don't use it!". > > The only safe use of C is as a target language for code generators > (such as the SofCheck Ada -> C compiler). The continuing creation of > buffer-overflow errors in C shows that, in practice, it is impossible > for humans to create safe C. Not to promote C, but purely from a logical perspective: The "continuing creation of buffer-overflow errors in C" only shows that there exist programmers/humans that don't always create safe programs in C. Since I assume that the same thing (unsafe programs) applies to Ada (say with respect to unhandled exceptions (Ariane, for instance ...) or with respect to memory leaks or priority inversions in tasking), the only remaining line on which an argument of the usability of C vs. that of Ada can develop is quantitatively, not qualitatively. I'd like just to point out that the world even in this respect is neither black and white (or at least you haven't demonstrated that convincingly yet), but more shades of gray. I concede the gray might be lighter in Ada sector and darker in the C sector, but I'd prefer quantitative arguments / reasoning in this world and some effort to estimate the difference between those shades over striking but logically flawed reasoning. I want absolutes I'll turn to religion. :-). Regards -- Markus