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=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 2002:a6b:9386:: with SMTP id v128-v6mr10155347iod.27.1531173838721; Mon, 09 Jul 2018 15:03:58 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 2002:aca:75c9:: with SMTP id q192-v6mr5250785oic.3.1531173838410; Mon, 09 Jul 2018 15:03:58 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.gegeweb.eu!gegeweb.org!news.redatomik.org!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!newsfeed7.news.xs4all.nl!85.12.16.69.MISMATCH!peer02.ams1!peer.ams1.xlned.com!news.xlned.com!peer02.am4!peer.am4.highwinds-media.com!peer02.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!d7-v6no6874062itj.0!news-out.google.com!z3-v6ni6819iti.0!nntp.google.com!g2-v6no3808080itf.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2018 15:03:58 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=47.185.195.62; posting-account=zwxLlwoAAAChLBU7oraRzNDnqQYkYbpo NNTP-Posting-Host: 47.185.195.62 References: <856189aa-fa00-4960-929e-174f352310ad@googlegroups.com> <2718c8d4-5f35-4fd8-a1aa-1e60069a7a5d@googlegroups.com> <39fce60c-9f56-42fb-b679-fa08810b00ee@googlegroups.com> <3701bf07-89a5-4cb0-a704-5aebb589ca79@googlegroups.com> <2f5e4ce0-94e8-4b94-9da7-045ec90a9b22@googlegroups.com> <9bb99fb4-b9c7-4516-97b5-da41466e96be@googlegroups.com> <1162d6bf-c226-4089-ae2e-870c7da9c80f@googlegroups.com> <2f5399b4-518b-4a2e-9941-2ae267d51309@googlegroups.com> <1ab5db5c-7892-40a8-ae36-ca1ec1168768@googlegroups.com> <0001HW.20F291E2002A542F70000C5E92CF@news.individual.net> <877d0a01-d342-433c-a541-3662736ae857@googlegroups.com> <0001HW.20F38DBF004C10E470000C5E92CF@news.individual.net> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <0908f2ae-ac32-4573-a630-9bf43250c35d@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Teaching C/C++ from Ada perspective? From: "Dan'l Miller" Injection-Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2018 22:03:58 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Received-Bytes: 6853 X-Received-Body-CRC: 281104801 Xref: reader02.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:53746 Date: 2018-07-09T15:03:58-07:00 List-Id: On Monday, July 9, 2018 at 2:34:07 PM UTC-5, Bill Findlay wrote: > Dan'l Miller wrote: > > On Monday, July 9, 2018 at 7:34:09 AM UTC-5, Bill Findlay wrote: > >> On 8 Jul 2018, Dan'l Miller wrote > >> (in article<877d0a01-d342-433c-a541-3662736ae857@googlegroups.com>): > >>=20 > >>> On Sunday, July 8, 2018 at 1:39:34 PM UTC-5, Bill Findlay wrote: > >>>> On 8 Jul 2018, Dan'l Miller wrote > >>>> (in article<1ab5db5c-7892-40a8-ae36-ca1ec1168768@googlegroups.com>): > >>>>=20 > >>>>> If there is one single root-cause reason that Ada failed to launch > >>>>> on the launchpad from, say, 1985 to 1993, it was this spurned-detes= t of Ada > >>>>> in telecom, not because of what was in or not in Ada, but because t= elecom > >>>>> was > >>>>> excluded from the selection process. > >>>>=20 > >>>> There is another. > >>>>=20 > >>>> The right-on then-dominant faction in CS academia, > >>>> who might have been expected to welcome a language soundly based on = SE > >>>> principles, > >>>> boycotted it without further consideration, simply because it origin= ated in > >>>> the DoD. > >=20 > > My alma mater had an all-Ada83 computer-science department in the schoo= l > > of engineering, fashioned out an older computer-technologist department= .=20 > > I went through the final grandfathered era of the mathematics departmen= t > > teaching the computer-science-proper courses. Some universities and so= me > > schools within otherwise-nonAda universities strongly embraced Ada as t= he > > definitive wave of the future (because they saw DoD's extant Ada mandat= e > > on the table, but not the forthcoming POSIX mandate from DoCommerce/GSA= /NIST). > >=20 > >>> I strongly suspect that was because of universities' desire for findi= ng favor > >>> in AT&T's eyes regarding coveted Unix licenses (pre-1984) ... > >>=20 > >> (a) We had a Unix licence since 1975, and a BSD licence since 1978. > >> =20 > >> (b) The people who negotiated licences were not the people who decided= which=20 > >> language to teach. > >=20 > > Yeah right. Letting the C fruit rot on the vine after the gardener > > carefully cultivated that coveted licensing relationship would not have > > gone over very well. > >=20 > > Troublesome heads of departments can easily be shuffled back into the > > deck. Troublesome deans almost as easily. The nail that stands out > > shall be hammered down. >=20 > I seem to have hit the nail on the head with =E2=80=9Cparanoia=E2=80=9D. >=20 > >> So no, paranoia about AT&T had nothing to do with it. > >> Knee jerk aversion to the products of the DoD had everything to do wit= h it. > >=20 > > In the telecom industry of that era (i.e., the 2nd largest amount of > > realtime embedded systems), that same* knee-jerk reaction was the basis > > of the motivation for developing CHILL and C++ (and to some degree the > > unwavering dedication to C as the workhorse at AT&T, and to some degree > > AT&T's PL/I divorce in 1969). > >=20 > > * with respect to not-invented-here technology; not w.r.t. to any > > anti-war anti-military stance that might have been present in universit= ies post-Vietnam > >=20 > >>> Every college and university (or school/division/department therewith= in) > >>> hitched their gravytrain wagons to 1 of those 3 during the 1980s. > >>=20 > >> In your experience, which was not ours. > >=20 > > Yes, in my direct observation: it varied per campus in regional > > university systems. It varied per school on the same campus. At times= , > > it varied even per department within the same school (e.g., > > math/hard-sciences versus computer science). One might be fervently a > > VMS shop, the other fervently a BSD shop. One might be a diversity sho= p > > (e.g., all of MULTICS, PRIMOS, VMS, HP, DG, IBM-world), the other might > > be a monolithic shop (e.g., only VMS; only IBM-world). It all depended > > on who from corporate world was on the curriculum-advisory committee fo= r > > that university or campus, on who was donating what gratis, and on what > > network of other appointments the staff had with research labs or defen= se > > contractors or other universities to mimic. > >=20 >=20 > You do not seem to have considered that your observation did not extend t= o > my continent. >=20 > --=20 > Bill Findlay https://www2.seas.gwu.edu/~mfeldman/ada-foundation.html Although the data are quite stale, the historical trend graph is fascinatin= g. This shows the uptake of Ada in universities was presumably greater dur= ing the 1990s than during the 1980s (unless there was a not-shown precipito= us collapse around 1990 or so and then a rebound post-1992).